Group Exhibition this is a place
This is a place, a place that has been lived in and explored. It has been a source of grounding, while simultaneously always changing. It has helped in familiarization with family histories and knowledge, and forming relationships with community. This place is ephemeral, captured as a static space through the lens of a camera, but is ever-fleeting to the naked eye. Featuring works by Stephen Attong, Tom Hsu, Brendan Georgo Ko, Eleni Nikoletsos, and Gloria Wong, this exhibition offers a space that evokes reflection on what the idea of what “place” means, and challenges notions of how viewers are implicated in the place(s) they inhabit.
Presented by the plumb. Supported by FOTOBOX.
Curated by Avalon Mott
Brendan George Ko is a visual storyteller working in photography, video, installation, text, and sound. His work conveys a sense of experience through storytelling, and he describes the image as supplementary to the story it represents. In 2010, Ko received his BFA from the Ontario College of Art & Design University, where he majored in photography, and he went on to the Master of Visual Studies programme at the University of Toronto, where his practice focused on video and sound.
Eleni Nikoletsos (b. 1990) is a photographer based in Vancouver, BC, originally hailing from Toronto. Nikoletsos became enthralled with the process of documenting and archiving at a young age which eventually led her to pursue a BFA in photography from Emily Carr University in 2012. Nikoletsos’ work is centred around capturing beauty and magic in the ordinary. She searches streets, alleyways and shared spaces for the perfect subject matter, often finding herself struck in unexpected places. She is playful in her approach, developing a sense of style that encapsulates a colourful, dream-like feeling.
Gloria Wong (b. 1998) is a visual artist based between Tkaronto and Vancouver. Her work explores the complexities and nuances of Asian diasporic identities and how they are shaped by different relationships—whether between people, their environments or objects. Through her lens-based practice, she is interested in the ways this identity and lineage are constructed, negotiated and documented through embodied acts of care, memory and gesture.Wong holds a BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University of Arts + Design (2020) and her work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, in both solo and group exhibitions.
Stephen Attong (b.1994) is a Trinidad-born, Toronto-based photographer. His work explores sentimentality in public spaces. From amusement parks to quiet moments with friends, hidden beneath playful colours and structures is deep contemplation of shared experiences. He intends to enable viewers to relate to, recall, or imagine their own memories in his work. Often inspired by screenplays and cinema, Attong explores how these experiences, perspectives and ideas can co-exist through the common anchor of a still image.
Tom Hsu (b. 1988, Hsinchu, Taiwan) is an artist currently residing and working in unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories in Vancouver. He comes from a base in analog photography, and this stability allows him to extend into made, found, and choreographic sculpture, all of which deal with the everyday mundane. Hsu holds a BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited at numerous galleries, including the Libby Leshgold Gallery, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Pendulum Gallery, Centre A, Telephone Gallery, Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Burrard Art Foundation, YACTAC, UNIT/PITT (Vancouver); and Gallery TPW (Toronto).
Avalon Mott (b. 1990) is a curator, photographer, and arts administrator originally from Vancouver, now calling Tkaronto/Toronto home. She holds a BFA in photography from Emily Carr University, and an MFA in Criticism + Curatorial Practice from OCAD University as the recipient of the Presidential Scholarship and Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Mott was a founding member and co-director of FIELD Contemporary (Vancouver), and has curated for numerous galleries and festivals in British Columbia and Ontario. Alongside her current position as Director at Xpace Cultural Centre (Toronto), she is a contributing member of the plumb (Toronto). Her curatorial practice engages the curatorial methodology of exhibitionary affect and how, when applied, can heighten moments of feeling in the gallery space through individual relational experiences of the works on display.
