Noni Kaur, Microbial Feast (detail), 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Noni Kaur: ਨਜਰ ਨਾ ਲੱਗੇ / Nazar na lage / Knock on wood
August 16, 2022 – January 14, 2023
Curated by Jasmine Mander

Nazar na lage loosely translates to “knock on wood”, a superstitious Indian phrase meant to ward off negative energy. Artist Noni Kaur’s vibrant rangoli work welcomes visitors back into the gallery after years of pandemic upheaval.

A cultural practice in India and Singapore, the art of rangoli uses coloured materials to decorate floors in domestic and public spaces. Traditionally made from powder pigments, flowers, rice, or sand, this practice attracts positive energy for celebrating auspicious occasions. Kaur’s immersive, reactive, multi-sensory installations bridge gaps between gender, culture, the body, and the non-human world, through expansive, topographical landscapes of desiccated coconut installations. As the work slowly decays over the course of the exhibition, it mirrors the cycle of life, death, and return to the earth.

Sami Tsang, To Panda’s Rescue, 2020. Painting, 36 x 36”. Courtesy of the artist.

Sami Tsang: Know Your Place
August 27 – November 26, 2022
Curated by Suzanne Carte

What does it mean to know your place? Having grown up in a family with clearly defined gender and birth order roles, Sami Tsang utilizes the power of clay to push back against the foundational social systems which inform those dynamics. Her sculptural forms and paintings become conductors for conversation, processing, and reflections that destabilize the roles within complex, prescribed family hierarchy. The works unfurl narratives of personal trauma, and the painful negotiation of building new relationships.

LOKI, Future of Work design, 2022.

The Future of Work: Parallel Economies
August 26 – December 31, 2022
Curated by Suzanne Carte

Parallel Economies explores emerging and established diverse economies, radical new forms of production and alternatives to the ways in which industrialized sectors exploit resources and workers. This exhibition and program series features artists and cultural producers working within solidarity economies, focusing on mutual aid, actively working against competitive forms of growth, and who are formulating anti-capitalist methods and strategies around worker ownership, peer-to-peer exchange, gift economies, cooperatives, community-governance, financial justice, and climate justice reform. Participating artists include Justseeds, Christina Battle, Jeffrey Gibson, GUDSKUL, Works-in-Progress, Derya Akay, Gendai Gallery, Jen Delos Reyes & June Ahn, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Chandra Melting Tallow, & Tania Willard, and community members such as the art and craft guilds of the region, local gardeners, historians, and restaurants, as well as the Burlington Public Library, The Pink Project, and Brock University’s Department of Labour Studies.

The fall exhibitions’ opening reception, THE HIVE, on Saturday August 27 from 1 – 4pm is packed full of activities throughout the building and on the city streets. Clay & Paper Theatre lead a family-friendly outdoor mask and flag-making workshop with a participatory pageant and parade in Brock Park celebrating the communication, productivity, organization, and cooperation of honeybees through music, poetry, and dance. The studios are open and active with the guilds of Arts Burlington welcoming guests, artist Jesse Purcell demos silk-screening in the gallery, and collective Works-In-Progress host an open workshop on repurposing and repairing unwanted textiles and damaged clothes.

The Future of Work is supported by a dynamic season of hands-on workshops such as Wildcrafted Balms and Salves and Handmade Incense with Amina Suhuwardy and Introduction to Screen Printing with Justseeds’ member Jesse Purcell. Now in our second year, Reclaiming Clay, our programming partnership with Joseph Brant Hospital’s Mental Health Recreation and Wellness Program, will expand to bring health care workers and both in- and out-patients together in the studio to experience the therapeutic properties of clay. Visit the LEARN page on our website to register.

Future of Work is a co-presentation by the Workers Art and Heritage Centre and Art Gallery of Burlington. The AGB is generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, GWD Foundation for Kids, and incite Foundation for the Arts.

Art Gallery of Burlington is proud to acknowledge that the land where it is located is part of the ancient Dish With One Spoon Treaty and also the Brant Tract Purchase, Treaty No. 3 3/4 of 1795, and it is grateful to the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and the Six Nations of the Grand River for sharing this territory.

1333 Lakeshore Road Burlington, ON L7S 1A9
www.agb.life
@artgallburl

Colleagues in the media are invited to connect with:
Nadine Heath, Director Marketing and Communications
905-632-7796, ext. 304 | nadine@agb.life
Exhibition guided tours available upon request