Go and See the Giant Peach

Centre A @ the Art Gallery of South Okanagan | Vanessa Kwan | JUL
15
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Centre
A presents 
 
THE PROJECT ROOM
Vanessa Kwan - Your Private Sky
(Penticton)
July 15 to August 21
at the Art Gallery of the South
Okanagan
199 Marina Way, Penticton, BC, V2A 1H3

Vancouver artist
Vanessa Kwan has been commissioned by the AGSO, in
co-operation with the
Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian
Art (Centre A), to
create a giant walk-in peach. This installation,
constructed from fiberglass
and wood, makes an obvious reference to the
South Okanagan Valley's
agricultural history, while functioning as a
parallel site to Penticton's
Annual Peach Festival, held this year from
August 3rd to the 7th. Kwan
installation's also refers to the giant
peach-drink stand on Okanagan Lake
beach that was destroyed during a riot in
the summer of 1991 and which has
since then been replaced by yet another
oversized fruit-kiosk.
 
On the
inside of Kwan's massive peach, tiny holes drilled into the ceiling
will
mimic several constellations. "The viewers' overall experience is to
be
slightly anti-climatic. The work is defined by its artifice (the peach
isn't
a peach, nor is the sky a sky) but my hope is that in the contrast
between
the glossy exterior and the do-it-yourself rough interior will
afford
viewers a dual representation of the object's failure: it represents
two
equally questionable means of representing the natural environment."
Guest
Curator Alice Ming Wai Jim perceives Kwan's giant peach as "an
intervention
into tourism's utopian claim on the landscape by enabling
participants to
come up with their own meanings of place."
 
This
project was made possible through a Spirit of BC Arts Fund grant and
a
contribution from the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary
Asian
Art (Centre A). For more information please contact Curtis
Collins,
Director-Curator, Art Gallery of the South Okanagan.

agso@telus.net
tel. (250)
493-2928

fax. (250)493-3992
 
The AGSO acknowledges the financial
support of the City of Penticton, the BC
Arts Council, the BC Gaming Policy
and Enforcement Branch, local arts
councils and foundations, local sponsors,
our members and private donors.