Five reasons to checkout MOA's contemporary ceramics exhibit Playing with Fire
Credit to Author: Shawn Conner| Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:00:56 +0000
Tree of Life, by Alwyn O’Brien is part of the Museum of Anthropology’s’s current exhibit Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary. Photo: Alina Ilyasova, Museum of Anthropology at UBC.
Playing with Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary
When: until March 29 2020
Where: Museum of Anthropology
Info: moa.ubc.ca
1. Not your garden-variety ceramics. Featuring the work of 11 contemporary artists, the pieces in Playing with Fire explore social injustice, racism, identity, and censorship. For example, Judy Chartrand’s Counteract looks, at first glance, like a diner, with a bar and stools. On closer inspection, it turns out to be a commentary on racism and segregation.
2. Local artists at work. All the exhibitors were either born and raised in B.C. or make the West Coast their home. Artists include David Lambert, who is sometimes referred to as “the godfather of B.C. ceramics,” and Taiwan-born Ying-Yueh Chuang. Chuang incorporates elements from plants and sea anemones in her clay works to create forms both symmetrical and asymmetrical.
3. Visit The Antechamber. The 35 installations range in size, shape, and interactive experience. Ian Johnston’s The Antechamber includes a 25-foot-long room covered in a repeating, grid-like motif of ceramic elements, and is designed to evoke the scale of consumption of manufactured goods in modern society.
4. “What is the vessel?” That’s the question asked by Alwyn O’Brien’s earthenware and porcelain sculptures. The artist brings her extensive knowledge of the history of decorative arts and passion for baroque to work the dissects the definition of a vessel.
5. Value added. Along with the ceramics show, museum attractions include Indigenous works in the Great Hall and the world’s largest collection of works by Haida artist Bill Reid.