Peculiar Movements/Green Junctions

Hannah Busse & Alex Gregory, curated by Kalina Nedelcheva

Alex Gregory, Botanical Glitches series

Peculiar Movements/Green Junctions
Hannah Busse & Alex Gregory

Curated by Kalina Nedelcheva

March 4 – May 6, 2023 | Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 12-5pm, and by appointment: info@namara.ca
Opening reception: Saturday, March 4, 2023. 5—7PM at NAMARA Projects

We look forward to seeing you at the opening reception, with refreshments and a live performance.

NAMARA is proud to present the first exhibition of our hosted program–Exhibitions resulting from our open call for curatorial proposals.

Peculiar Movements/Green Junctions is a multi-media exhibition that explores the intersection between humans, materials, and nature. Harnessing a strategic combination of sculpture-installation and video, this curatorial project spotlights the contrast between the livelihood of plant life and the static-ness of man-made materials while exploring the hidden movements that transpire in the margin of our perception of nature. Peculiar Movements/Green Junctions interrogates the idea that the human gaze “activates” nature. That is, nature is animated only when we turn our attention to it. The well-known quote: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” offers a glimpse into this mentality. Asking such a question testifies to how even in our awareness of nature as animated, we still tie its liveliness to the habits and frequency of our own perception. Peculiar Movements/Green Junctions answers this question with yes, it makes a sound; its thud onto the ground is so powerful that it sends reverberations across every grass blade, every speckle of soil, every nearby insect and animal. Everything changes and it changes constantly.

Opening performance by Roya Biazar—spacious bassist, pray sit escapist; (she/they/he/wombman)

About the Curator

Kalina Nedelcheva (she/they) is a multi-media artist-researcher, illustrator, emerging curator, and musician, based in Toronto, Canada. With a medal-winning MFA thesis in Criticism & Curatorial Practice from OCAD University, she explores the ways in which human consciousness engages in processes of meaning-making. With a passion for writing, film, and experimental mapping as mediums for theoretical storytelling, she channels potential of alogical language, chaos, and montage to challenge dominant ideological practices. Her experimental shorts have been screened by Trinity Square Video, OCAD SU Spring Festival, Toronto Arthouse Film Festival, and more. Kalina’s writing has appeared in publications such as Peripheral Review, Sidedoor Magazine, The Senses & Society Journal and she was the runner-up for C Magazine’s New Critics Award. As an emerging curator, Kalina has headed projects like “Archives of Space,” “Peculiar Movements/Green Junctions,” as well as ongoing collaborative endeavors such as “DEN” and “Movement/ Nature: Guided Exercises by Artists” at the AGO.

About the Artists

Hannah Busse is a Toronto-based artist who has an ecology-informed and eco-conscious artistic practice. She has a BFA in Sculpture and Installation from OCAD University in Toronto, ON. Her work as an artist draws inspiration from nature and knowledge gathered from working as a florist and plant specialist. Hannah explores her love for nature and she positions her work as encouragement for environmental activism and change. Since the beginning, Hannah’s practice has engaged with themes of ecology, humans’ impact on the environment, and the need to reduce, reuse and recycle. When developing her installations, Hannah uses found, donated, reclaimed and repurposed materials along with natural components. She aims to encourage in-depth reflections and discussions about personal consumption and environmental change.

Hannah Busse, The Living room 5

The Living Room installation acts as a junction between the natural material given and the unnatural environment. Hannah collaborates with the material on the aesthetic of the installation. Once the work is set up, the artists allow the living materials to exercise their agency, allowing the room to be as vital as possible. The public is invited to interact with the work and play a part in the The Living Room’s development or deconstruction.

Alex Gregory is an artist-researcher whose work combines the materiality of analog techniques with digital manipulation. She has an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practices from OCAD University in Toronto, ON. Her thesis project Fragmented Flora consists of the curation of a digital environment that utilizes the affective qualities of physical space; the written research deconstructs the ways in which permanence and materialism are discussed and valued, as these issues intersect with the digital.

Alex Gregory, Botanical Glitches series

Botanical Glitches builds on the research conducted for Fragmented Flora—the material ramifications of digital space and the ways in which digital technologies mirror organic matter. This methodology mixes analog and digital ways of making to digitally render the physical manipulation of organic matter, representing the globalist / capitalist dependence on the digital. Utilizing digital techniques to inform a traditional medium demonstrates that time is not linear—the past and future inform the present. As a fragile commodity (that is frequently shipped across the global) Alex’s floral subjects are inseparable from capitalism (specifically the effects of capitalism on agricultural labourers and the environment), and their presentation and dissemination is intrinsically linked to the digital realm.

About NAMARA Projects:

Located in the Dupont Arts Building, NAMARA Projects is a new venue for research, deliberation, and presentation of curatorial work. NAMARA works around the fluctuating borders of the traditional art world. The explorations conducted in the Project Space inform both independent and commissioned presentations. Through our work, we celebrate thoughtful work by contemporary artists; challenge traditions, experimenting with untested methods; and welcome new collaborators and audiences.

915 Dupont St, Toronto
info@namara.ca
@namaraprojects

About NAMARA Curatorial:

NAMARA is a curatorial firm under the direction of Natalie MacNamara. NAMARA bridges the gap between the art world and broader commercial, public, and educational fields. We align partner interests with the goal of producing meaningful and engaging cultural projects. We deliver art strategy, collections, exhibitions, permanent installations, temporary experiential and visual projects in digital and physical space. What sets us apart is our interdisciplinary approach to bringing together client and commissioning bodies’ priorities, with artists’ conceptual and aesthetic faculties. The result is concept-driven, artist-led projects that engage audiences and deliver impact.