The AGB begins its 50th Anniversary celebrations with the Winter Exhibitions Opening Reception and return of the Artist Material Fund. It will take place on Thursday, January 16, 2025, 6:30–8:00 pm with the opening of a ceramic group exhibition, Time Isn’t Real, and Misbah Ahmed’s solo exhibition, Dry Thunder.

ORXSTRA, Convergence, 2023. Single channel video, 00:09:06. Courtesy of the artists.

Time isn’t real. Well, it is, and it isn’t. The sun and moon rise and fall, and stuff happens in between. At the AGB, that stuff in between has been happening for fifty years! Opening January 17, 2025, and running until April 27, 2025, Time Isn’t Real pushes beyond celebratory timestamping and makes space for open discussions on the futurity of art and clay. The gallery is using this half-century celebration of artistic production, cultural festivities, connections, and storytelling as an opportunity to bring multiple generations of Canadian clay artists together including Alex Jacobs-Blum, Roy Caussy x Glenn Lewis, Gabi Dao, Hannah Faas, Thomas Haskell, Manuel Mathieu, Julie Moon, Lindsay Montgomery, Anahita Norouzi, ORXSTRA, Linda Sormin, and Shanie Tomassini. It is not a survey or biennale of contemporary ceramics, but a blending (or bending) of time, so that what one might call the past, or understand as the future, can be seen as imagining the now—the now as the future. It works against prescribing a unidirectional time trap because the gallery, like clay, is active and our histories are complex and many.

The exhibition’s title is taken from the words and guidance of Kim Wheatly, Ojibwe Anishinaabe Grandmother from Shawanaga First Nation Reserve, who reminds everyone that indoctrinated time is not the only reading or measure of time, and that the natural cycles of the earth and cosmos inform our ways of being.

What is time in the context of one of the oldest artforms in existence, one comprised of a material—earthen clay—that embodies the passing of time itself? Clay is a language. It is a form of knowledge. It is practice and discipline. It is a complex alchemy. It is a tool, it is play, it is love. It is an ancient technology. It is the cosmos, the future, and the past. At its core, clay embodies a timeless connection to the Earth, a tangible link between human and non-human worlds via its communion with all the elements—earth, water, air, and fire. Clay is also what propels us as an institution!

As the AGB commemorates this milestone anniversary, it celebrates the achievements of the past but also embraces the boundless potential of the future. Through the transformative alchemy of clay, one can find a mirror reflecting the diversity, resilience, and infinite creativity of Canadian artists. In their hands, clay transcends its earthly origins to become a vessel for imagination, a conduit for storytelling, a tether to the Cosmos, and a testament to the enduring, unifying power of art.

To help unpack, or unfold, time, the assistance of literal rock stars has been enlisted. Geologist, Dr. Bjornerud, discusses her concept of Timefulness and vision “that if people understood our shared history and destiny as Earth-dwellers, we might treat each other, and the planet, better.” Geologist, Dr. McCarthy, explains her role as lead scientist at Crawford Lake, sharing research about how they are measuring the Anthropocene from the “Golden Spike”, a core sample of the lake’s sediment striations. Ceramicist and sustainable materials researcher, Sara Howard, reviews her circular ceramics practice, which reduces harm inflicted on our planet and preserves natural resources.

In the studios Thomas Haskell shares techniques for sculptural hand-building and Lindsay Montgomery teaches a two-day introduction to maiolica illustration workshop. The AGB will dig deeper into the Earth and its evocations of deep time through a three-part drawing class guided by Sarah Kernohan and a rock repair workshop with Catherine Chan.

Misbah Ahmed, Summer nights in Islamabad, 2021. Acrylic on wood. 86.4 x 91.4 cm. Courtesy of the Artist.

In the Perry Gallery, Misbah Ahmed’s Dry Thunder, curated by Sarah Edo, is open until April 27, 2025. Drawing upon memories from summer nights spent in her childhood home in Islamabad, Pakistan, Misbah considers the phenomenon of dry thunderstorms – a storm that produces thunder and lightning without rain – as metaphoric and literal portal to meditate on eco-poetics, mythology and folklore, and urban and wildlife transformation in her first institutional solo exhibition.

Artist Material Fund, artLAB Gallery, Western University, 2022. Photo: Dickson Bou.

From January 14 – 19 the AGB hosts the Artist Material Fund, an ongoing project revolutionizing the way galleries and museums handle waste. It is a free relocation service that connects surplus materials from the cultural industry to individuals eager to give them a new life. By redirecting “trash” back into the hands of the public, it bypasses the landfill to create greater opportunities for creativity, sustainability, and community education.

It is open to everyone, and the rules are simple:
First-come, first-served.
No limits to what you can take.
Take only what you need.

The Art Gallery of Burlington is supported by the City of Burlington, Ontario Arts Council, and Ontario Trillium Foundation. The AGB’s learning programming has been sponsored by The Burlington Foundation and the incite Foundation for the Arts. The opening reception for our Winter Exhibitions was made possible with the generous support of Louise Cooke and the 50th Anniversary Exhibitions have been sponsored by the J.P. Bickell Foundation.

The Art Gallery of Burlington is located on the ancestral territory of many Indigenous Nations including the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and Métis peoples. The territory is mutually covered by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy, the Ojibway, and other allied Nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. We acknowledge that the land upon which we gather, to create and learn, is part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit.

Art Gallery of Burlington
1333 Lakeshore Road
Burlington, ON L7S 1A9
www.agb.life
info@agb.life

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