Join Contemporary Calgary for an online Artist Talk with WATER EVENT artist, seth cardinal dodginghorse as he discusses his work The Glenmore Rezerveoir, 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.

This Artist Talk it is hosted as a Public Program of the ongoing exhibition, Yoko Ono: GROWING FREEDOM and will be held online on Zoom and broadcast through Contemporary Calgary’s Facebook Live. A recording of this discussion will be posted on Contemporary Calgary’s website at a late date.

About The Glenmore Rezerveoir

Made of the dirt from Tsuut’ina/The SW Calgary Ring Road, parfleche, earth pigments, sinew, 15L grocery store water jug meant to hold and sell Calgary municipal water, the sculpture is in direct response to the necessitated purchase of bottled water on the Tsuut’ina Nation and is concerned with the larger issue of displacement for alleged progress. 

Describing the work, seth writes, “The Glenmore Reservoir is built on Tsuut’ina Nation land that they were forced to sell in the 1920’s to the city of Calgary. The SW Calgary Ring Road is currently being built on my family’s Tsuut’ina land that was stolen and sold in 2013 to the city of Calgary. Since 2013, I haven’t been able to drink clean water from my tap on Tsuut’ina because of the SW Calgary Ring Road. I now have to buy bottled water that comes from stolen Tsuut’ina land. 

“Dear Calgary and Calgarians, stop forcing Tsuut’ina Chief and Councils to sell land, they can’t say no. Think about what you drink and where you drive.”

WATCH: ARTIST TALK | Faye HeavyShield on Yoko Ono’s WATER EVENT (1971/2020) 

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Faye HeavyShield discusses her work aohkii/water, 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.

Faye’s water sculpture comprises a glass bowl collaged on the outside with images of Oldman River, filled with river stones and water. It is a work that honours the rivers; especially the aptly named Old Man. Faye explains, “This is a reflection of our place .. meaning our responsibility. It is a reflection on the fragility and the strength of rivers (and of us)”.

WATCH: Pillow Talk: John and Yoko’s BED-IN FOR PEACE, with Joan Athey and Minnie York
Wednesday, November 25
5pm MST / 7pm EST / Nov 26 10am AEST

It was a circus. It was a song. It was bigger than both of them. Find out the lesser-known inside stories at Contemporary Calgary's online conversation with Joan Athey and Minnie Yorke, custodians of the Gerry Deiter and Ritchie Yorke archives that form an integral part of the exhibition GROWING FREEDOM. Through photographs of the fanfare and spectacle, to more tender moments of love and shared idealism at the 1969 Montreal BED-IN-FOR-PEACE, their research and investigations of what went on behind the scenes have informed our understanding of the art and social activism of John and Yoko.

This conversation is hosted as a Public Program around the ongoing exhibition, GROWING FREEDOM: The Instructions of Yoko Ono and the art of John and Yoko, September 17, 2020-  January 31, 2021.

About the Speakers

Joan Athey & The Gerry Deiter Archives

Joan E. Athey has worked with creative people all her life. A marketing and promotions strategist for over 20 years, she spent the bulk of her career as a communications specialist with the CBC in Vancouver. Born in Toronto, Joan’s father ran a camera shop on Danforth Avenue where she was exposed to the magic of photography. She learned about journalism working for the Toronto Star as an entertainment writer. Eventually making her way to the West Coast via Edmonton, Joan learned about music production in the studios at the CBC. For the last 11 years, she has been the curator of this precious archive of images that Gerry Deiter took in 1969, exhibiting  them  to over 200,000 people in Liverpool, Coventry, Bogotá, San Diego, Tokyo, and elsewhere. 

Gerry Deiter was a native of Brooklyn, New York. He apprenticed with Frances Scavullo, a famous New Yorker known for his controversial portraits of celebrities.  As a photographer, his career varied from the gruesome (crime and medical photographer) to the sublime as a fashion photographer for Women's Wear Daily. He was a friend of Timothy Leary's,  a photo-journalist for the Village Voice, Time and Life magazines,  as well as teaching at the Pratt Institute. Through his involvement with the Manhattan avant-garde art scene, Dieter was introduced to Yoko Ono. He moved to Montreal in 1968.  In 1969, on assignment for Life Magazine, he attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.  Intending to stay a few hours, he stayed the entire 8 days, the only still photographer to do so. Life never ran the photos, and he hid them away for nearly 40 years. He died December 9, 2005.  His friend Joan E. Athey purchased the archive of over 400 slides and negatives in 2007 to carry on Deiter's desire to rekindle the spirit of Give Peace A Chance.

Minnie Yorke & The Ritchie Yorke Archives

Minnie Yorke has worked in Creative industries all her life.  She started out in the fashion industry then moved on to Film, TV props and Wardrobe. Working for many years on music videos brought her closely in touch with the entertainment business.

 Minnie became Ritchie 'Yorke’s photographer and recording tech after they got together in 2005.  Working closely with Ritchie she became aware of his vast knowledge and connections with all levels of the Music business around the world.

Ritchie has been an active part of Rock 'N' Roll history, touching upon the lives and works of many of the musical greats, including John and Yoko.

Minnie is now the custodian of the Ritchie Yorke Archive of the history Music Journalism circa 1962 -2017. The Ritchie Yorke Project has been working on digitizing many hours of interviews and cataloguing his life’s work ­­and his collection of treasures. She is very grateful to Yoko for being invited to be a part of GROWING FREEDOM putting some of Ritchie­­­''s collection on the world stage to share with the public.

Ritchie Yorke was a Brisbane born music author and journalist. He was the first full-time rock writer for The Globe and Mail, and served as Billboard’s Canadian editor for a decade in the 70s, and for the Rolling Stone. He’s penned books on Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, and more recently his journey with John and Yoko.

He aided the staging of John and Yoko’s famed Montreal bed-in and including meetings with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Marshall Mcluhan as well as their appearance at the famed Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert.

Yorke was instrumental as Lennon’s International Peace Envoy for The War is Over Campaign in 1969. 

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.