Art and Design Graduate Student Association

Opening Reception of the ADGSA Exhibition happening now!
Artist Jesper Alvaer
Upstream the Cold Chain (2017) @ Harcourt House

Our opening reception is taking place at Harcourt House this evening 7-10!

Installation Day 2! exhibition Designing Connection in Friction at Harcourt House. Sept 20-30, 2018 @ Harcourt House

Installtion day 1. ADGSA exhibition “Designing Connection in Friction”
Opening reception Sep 21 7-10pm! @ Harcourt House

Call for Artists
Exhibition
Harcourt House Main Gallery
September 20–30, 2018 Edmonton Design Week

Over the past three decades, we have seen art practices that strive to create connections between disparate individuals, communities, and cultural entities. Dialogic art, socially engaged art, and pedagogical art practices show the possibilities of art’s intervention and its impact at various scales. Meanwhile, local and global societies have seen an increased number of conflicts that inevitably shape our lives around the presence of friction. The ethnographer Anna L. Tsing defines “friction” as “the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across differences” in her Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (2005). By creating and presenting an encounter with differences, an artist connects a viewer to a certain community addressed in the artwork. Although odd, precarious, or embarrassing, this encounter may lead to creative qualities of experience and outcomes. Such practice is an act of designing connections in societies that are replete with conflicts and frictions.

The proposed exhibition, “Designing Connection in Friction,” seeks to present recent artistic research that strives to create an artistic intervention in a community where social injustice threaten socially marginalized individuals and to foster a connection between these people and the viewers. We welcome artworks that address issues in social taboos and norms that restrain individuals’ human rights; absurdity in everyday life in capitalism, colonial legacy, gender violence, and environmental issues; and unequal power relationship of global economy and politics. We welcome submissions of artwork in any media and documentation of community-based activities that are related to the theme. Two or three selected works will be displayed at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre (Edmonton, AB) Main Gallery Space during Edmonton Design Week (September 20–30, 2018).

To submit a complete artwork or a proposal, please send the following:
· artist statement including the title, medium, dimension, and description of artwork
· artist bio
· digital image (JPEG) or video (please name the digital file “your last name_title”)

to [email protected] by March 17, 2018.

This exhibition is presented by the University of Alberta’s Art and Design Graduate Students’ Association (ADGSA). The ADGSA seeks to promote the circulation of ideas among emerging artists and thinkers in Edmonton, across Canada and beyond, and to invigorate our community by collaboratively hosting exhibitions.

Artist fee TBD.

Curator in Charge: Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon of the ADGSA

For any inquiry, please contact [email protected].
Find us on Facebook: ADGSAUAlberta
Instagram: ADGSA_UofA

Call for Submissions for Curators !!!!

Thanks all for coming for the ADGSA Studio Crawl! Fascinating to see our MFA artists' works!

To all art and design graduate students! .ualberta

A few photos from the opening of Lindsay Kirker's "Fake Empire" and Kyle Terrence's "Embeddings". Thank you to everyone who came out to support both of our exceptional artists-in-residence.

There is still a chance to see Kyle Terrence's "Embeddings" at the Lodge (11034 124th St) if you missed the opening last week. Kyle will be at the gallery to show the exhibition from 5-7pm on Friday, June 9th!

Come stop by to chat with the artist and see this exhibition before it's over!