WATCH: ARTIST TALK | Adrian A Stimson on Yoko Ono’s WATER EVENT
Wednesday November 18, 7PM MST
Adrian A Stimson discusses his work We’ve made our Water Bed..., a water sculpture made in response to Yoko Ono’s invitation to produce a container that held water. The work is one of six water sculptures produced for Ono’s ongoing collaborative work, WATER EVENT (1971/ 2020), part of Ono’s exhibition GROWING FREEDOM at Contemporary Calgary.
Stimson offers the waterbed to Premier Jason Kenney UCP, Alberta, who has been cited in a number of studies as being one of Canada’s biggest polluters of water, owed primarily to the industries of oil and agriculture in Alberta. Jason Kenney comes from a long list of politicians in Alberta and Canada who enact legislation that often are detrimental to the environment, specifically the water we all rely on.
The waterbed is at once a comment on the tongue-in-cheek expression, ‘You made your bed, now lie in it’ and also a nod to Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s historic BED-IN FOR PEACE. The bed is a place of protest and love.
Adrian A Stimoson, We’ve made our Water Bed..., WATER EVENT, 2020.
About the Artist
Adrian A Stimson is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation. He has a BFA from the Alberta University for the Arts and MFA from the University of Saskatchewan.
Adrian is an interdisciplinary artist who exhibits nationally and internationally, he was awarded the Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2018, REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award –Hnatyshyn Foundation 2017, Blackfoot Visual Arts Award in 2009, Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005 and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003.
