A new season of exhibitions opening at The Reach Gallery Museum on Oct. 1 embraces the power of fantasy and spectacle.
New shows, headlined by artists from BC and Nova Scotia, present a cacophony of colour, texture, and sensory experience to welcome visitors back into the space as the organization begins offering public programs and events in person again.
While The Reach has continued to welcome walk-in traffic since June 2020, public programming has been primarily online.
“It’s been tough but necessary to restrict our events and programs to an online audience,” said executive director Laura Schneider. “We’re really looking forward to the opportunity to carefully welcome visitors back to engage in more than just a look around.”
The Reach presents four new projects in its fall season. VampSites is a solo exhibition of contemporary artwork by Nova Scotia-based artist Mitchell Wiebe.
Wiebe’s complex and fantastical installation combines making and showing, and imports the chaos and theatre of his studio into the well-lit, rational architecture of the art museum.
This nationally touring exhibition is curated by Pan Wendt, and is organized and circulated by the Confederation Center Art Gallery in Charlottetown, PEI.
The artist will present an online talk, co-hosted by The Reach and University of the Fraser Valley’s School of Creative Arts, on Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. To register, visit thereach.ca or search for “Mitchell Wiebe” at eventbrite.ca
Jorden and David Doody are a Kelowna-based husband-and-wife artist team whose exhibition The Dreaming Machine presents a showcase of new, two- and three-dimensional work.
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Known for their trippy, immersive installation works that probe at the intersection between the virtual and the physical worlds, the Doodys produce work of art that explore how our consciousness is impacted by the proliferation and saturation of images in contemporary screen culture.
New online curators’ tours coming this fall will highlight artworks in The Dreaming Machine. The latest video releases will be posted on The Reach website.
Other exhibitions include Art on Demand 7.3, which presents the work of Faria Firoz and is curated by Emilie Kvist. Both Kvist and Firoz are graduates of the University of the Fraser Valley’s bachelor of fine arts program.
Art on Demand is an exhibition series that is part of the Emerge program at The Reach which supports emerging artists and arts professionals from the ages of 18 to 35.
Grade 6 students from Nerlap Sidhu’s class at Eugene Reimer Middle School will also be presenting their Equity Backpack Project in the Community Art Space.
An opening event to launch the new exhibitions takes place Friday, Oct. 1 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Admission is free, but pre-registration is required at thereach.ca. Masks and proof of vaccination are mandatory.