Don’t miss the book launch, art exhibit and film screening for Canada’s Raincoast at Risk: Art for an Oil-Free Coast, opening in four coastal BC communities this November and December (in Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Salt Spring Island.)
This past summer, 50 Canadian artists (including some of Canada’s most celebrated artists, both Native and non-Native) took up their paintbrushes and carving tools to portray British Columbia’s lush raincoast. This rich ecosystem, which includes the Canada’s famed Great Bear Rainforest, is currently endangered by various pipeline and supertanker projects connected to the Alberta tar sands and to shale gas production.
The result is a 160-page art book, beautifully designed by Frances Hunter, and published by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. The book devotes two pages to each artist’s work, and includes a foreword written by scientist and author David Suzuki, an introduction to the region written by naturalist and author Briony Penn, an introduction to the Peoples of the northwest coast written by Heiltsuk artist and advocate Jessie Housty, and an afterword written by Canadian anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis. The book also includes the work of nine Canadian poets.
Some of the artists involved in this project are Robert Bateman, Mark Hobson, Carol Evans, Roy Henry Vickers, Craig Benson, Michael Svob, Alison Watt and Ben Davidson.
An exhibition of the art will accompany each book launch, along with a screening of the documentary film “Reflections”, shot on location with the artists at work in BC’s Great Bear Rainforest.
The original artworks, donated by the artists, will become part of a traveling art show and online auction to raise public awareness of the coast’s wild and diverse marine environment, and support for its wise conservation and sustainable development.
LAUNCH DATES
(Visit this link for details on exhibition hours: http://www.raincoast.org/oil-free-coast/artists-for-an-oil-free-coast/art-exhibition-dates/)
Vancouver
Grand Opening: Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. 7:30–9:30 pm Art Exhibition: Nov. 28-Dec. 2, 2012 Performance Works Theatre, 1398 Cartwright Street, Granville Island ~Victoria
Opening Night: Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012. 7:00–10:00 pm Art Exhibition: Dec. 5-9, 2012 Location: Victoria Conference Centre ~Salt Spring Island
Opening Night: Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012. 7:30–9:30 pm Art Exhibition: Dec. 12-16th, 2012 Art Spring Theatre, 100 Jackson Avenue, Ganges, Salt Spring Island ~Nanaimo
Opening Night: Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. 7:00 pm, Nanaimo Conference Centre (film) Art Exhibition: Dec. 20, 2012 – Jan. 5, 2013 Nanaimo Art Gallery, 150 Commercial Street, Nanaimo, BC
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