Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser: Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?

Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser, Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?, production still, 2020.

Don’t miss this unique exhibition in Banff!

Until July 30, 2023
Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff, Alberta
Wed-Sun | 12:30 – 5 pm | FREE
Walter Phillips Gallery Exhibition

Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser’s multi-media and virtual reality exhibition centres on an omniscient artificial intelligence named Piña, a fictitious digital repository that has gained consciousness through machine learning.

Piña has acquired knowledge through extensive data uploads from Ecuadorian and Filipino knowledge-keepers. Through Piña, viewers meet real-world healers and activists including members of the Ciber Amazonas, a community of Indigenous organizers comprising journalists, writers and broadcasters who use radio and other forms of technology to build community and circulate cultural information.

Enjoy a day in Banff, stop by Maclab Bistro at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity for lunch and visit the Walter Phillips Gallery.

Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser, Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?, film still, 2020.

About the Artists

Stephanie Comilang is an artist living and working between Toronto and Berlin. Her documentary-based works create narratives that look at how our understandings of mobility, capital and labour on a global scale are shaped through various cultural and social factors. Her work has been shown at Tate Modern, Hamburger Bahnhof, Tai Kwun Hong Kong, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Julia Stoschek Collection, and Haus der Kunst. She was awarded the 2019 Sobey Art Award, Canada’s most prestigious art prize for artists 40 years and younger.

Simon Speiser is an artist who conjures fictional concepts that merge nature with technology. Placing a variety of media and disciplines in dialogue with one another—ranging from writing, sculpture, and printing to video and VR installations—Speiser’s work expands the possibilities between art and science fiction. He has exhibited at the Tate Modern London, Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin, Frankfurter Kunstverein, MMK Frankfurt, CAC Quito, Oracle Berlin, MMCA Seoul, among others.

Piña, Why is the Sky Blue? was organized by Haema Sivanesan, Curator, Walter Phillips Gallery. It was previously presented at Gallery TPW (Toronto, ON), curated by Heather Canlas Rigg; the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina, SK), curated by John G. Hampton and Lillian O’Brien Davis; and at the Julia Stoschek Collection (Berlin, Germany), curated by Lisa Long.

The exhibition is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser, Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?, production still, 2020.

About Walter Phillips Gallery

Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is exclusively committed to the production, presentation, collection and analysis of contemporary art and curatorial practice. For contemporary artists, particularly those engaged in alternative forms of practice, Walter Phillips Gallery remains an essential and principal site where art is presented to an audience for critical reception. In an effort to ensure a broad and balanced representation of the different areas of research at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Gallery displays and collects: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photography, and new media-based works.

Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive
www.banffcentre.ca
walter_phillips_gallery@banffcentre.ca
403-762-6100

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Accessibility:
Walter Phillips is partially accessible. If wheelchair access is required please contact Walter Phillips Gallery staff at walter_phillips_gallery@banffcentre.ca, by phone at 1.403.762.6281