epistemologies of the moon
Lauren Fournier
Awarded the 6th annual Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators, Lauren Fournier’s exhibition epistemologies of the moon engages with the symbolism and imagery of the moon as a historically feminine and, more recently, feminist symbol, opening it up to new meanings and valences in the transnational 21st century. The exhibition emerges from Fournier’s curatorial research around land and place, exploring the dynamics of settler-colonialism and decolonization through mythology, mysticism, ritual, and spirituality. The project includes work by emerging and mid-career artists whose practices are indebted to ideas around the politics, aesthetics, and ethics of feminism today.
Image detail: Gillian Dykeman, Moon, 2016, single-channel video with sound, 2:23 mins [Photo: Jesse Boles]
Presented by the Art Gallery of Guelph, the Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is made possible through the support of the Centre Wellington Community Foundation’s Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund, The Guelph Community Foundation: Musagetes Fund, and through private donations.
About the curator
Lauren Fournier
Lauren Fournier is a curator, writer, artist, and scholar of experimental feminist art, literary, and theoretical practices. She works across film, video, performance, sound, music composition, and experimental writing to create cross-disciplinary work. Based in Toronto, Fournier is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at York University where her research is grounded in the intersections of art history, philosophy, literature, gender and sexuality studies, and contemporary art. Fournier holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Regina (2010) and an MA in English from Simon Fraser University (2012). She has worked as a frontline mental health and harm reduction worker, and she is actively engaged in bridging social work with her academic and artistic practices. Her commitment to mental health, class and racial justice, trauma, and addictions advocacy shapes her work.
Artists
Chief Lady Bird
Katherine Boyer
Gillian Dykeman
Maggie Groat
Rekha Lauren Ramachandran
Zoë Schneider
Yerbamala Collective
View More Exhibitions
exhibition
July 14.2023 / September 3.2023
This exhibition highlights Grande’s distinct visual lexicon culled from her experiences as well as cultural sources – symbolic references that coalesce in surreal, painterly compositions.
exhibition
May 25.2023 / September 10.2023
Incorporating elements of local lore as well as the evolving built landscape, Norlen’s large-scale drawings explore the effects of time and the play of memory and imagination that results.
exhibition
May 19.2023 / September 3.2023
The constructions of José Luis Torres evoke the prolonged ambiguity and estrangement inherent in experiences of immigration and exile.
exhibition
May 19.2023 / July 9.2023
Chelsea Ryan combines diaristic practices with digital technologies to record the still, transient, and enduring moments she notices of everyday life.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
The first exhibition to explore pioneering feminist artist Mary Kelly’s long engagement with activist movements.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Connecting aspects of Indigenous cosmology to wider cultural meanings, this exhibition speaks to the idea of seeing through space.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Taking root during pandemic lockdowns, this installation acknowledges loss while offering a space for grief and mourning.
exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
This work chronicles the artist’s experience of pregnancy amid reports of high maternal mortality rates experienced by Black women in the U.S.