Hendeca: 11 Sides

I recently attended the opening reception of the BFA grad class show, titled Hendeca: 11 Sides, at the Mackenzie Gallery on March 9th. The show featured work from the eleven BFA students graduating this year, and included work spanning many areas. As I walked towards the gallery and up the stairs, there were many people headed in the same direction. I've always found gallery openings to be a bit anxiety-inducing, although very neat, and recognizing so many professors and fellow students added to this. The gallery felt very crowded, which was a feat for such a large space - apparently over 450 people came to the opening reception. The huge number of people present, as well as the curious and congratulatory family members, greatly changed how the gallery space felt to me. I am used to going to galleries alone, and although I also went alone to the BFA opening reception, it was a very social event.

Of the eleven students showcasing their work, Joel Kovach was the only intermedia artist. His piece was an interactive video and audio work that explored queer stories and their relationship to the city. In the gallery, the artist statement was presented as a video on a large television with headphones attached so viewers can hear the audio. The artist's voice is distorted and his face is covered in wax. The piece featured twelve distorted videos of people telling a story related to queerness and their exact location in the city. The videos were on DVDs in a stack of drawers, with one DVD per drawer, and the audience could pick them up and play them on a TV. The TV didn't have attached headphones and during the opening I was worried the audio would interfere with nearby pieces and other viewers. However, there were also CDs that viewers could take and the album art included maps to the various locations in the city. Because of this, the art exists throughout all of Regina, and only part of it was situated in the gallery space.

Although there was only one intermedia student, one of the sculpture student's pieces incorporated projection and was intermedia related. The piece featured multiple plaster casts (presumably) of the artist's body, and a video of the casting process was projected on top of the plaster bodies.