TURNING TIDES
30 November 2015 – 8, December 2015 Gallery115
Vernissage Thursday, December 3rd at 6pm with a special performance by Cara Tierney. 
Department of Visual Arts, University of Ottawa, 100 Laurier Ave. E. Ottawa

“Water does not resist. Water flows... If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad, 2005.

Turning Tides is an exhibition of contemporary art that explores the phenomenon of water as a fundamental ecological and cultural resource and the ways in which contemporary artists are re-envisioning and reconceptualising this dialogue. Located within the context of the Canadian imagination, this exhibition invites viewers to reconsider the unique role that water plays in our cultural, political, environmental and historical lives.

Although images of rivers, lakes, marshes and coastlines are deeply inscribed in the visual imagination, concerns for the conservation of this natural resource continue to dwindle in our contemporary political consciousness. Turning Tides will open a dialogue on this issue, visualizing the contemporary condition of water both literally and imaginatively and its ability to flow and flood, rush and swallow, emerge and submerge and even dissipate completely.

The exhibition features works by Rebecca Belmore and Theo Pelmus, Sarah Fuller, Cara Tierney, Maayke Shrurer, François Cambe, Carol Howard Donati, Valérie Mercier and Rad. Conceptually linked by a common interest in human interactions with water, these artists challenge our complex understanding of water as a resource, a commodity and a necessity in the home, in legislation and in our cultural constructions.

The exhibition is curated by students of the fourth year Curating for Contemporary Art course at the University of Ottawa: Sherena Razek, Chanelle Lalonde, Megan MacLaurin, Montserrat Carrion Garcia, Emilie Gignac, Phoebe Sampey, and Jenn Fournier.