Nocturne!! Elinor Whidden, Espace Virtuel, and Will Robinson. October 17

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The Khyber ICA is pleased to be hosting a performance and installation
by Elinor Whidden, titled “Mountain Man”. The exhibition combines sculptural assemblages and large scale photographs from Whidden’s “Mountain Man” performance done last fall in the Rocky Mountains.

“This fall, Mountain Man has been invited to the Khyber.  Trail blazing
through various epic landscapes, this lone figure has come to Halifax
to set up camp.  Living frugally out of his Windshield Wiper Tent,
Mountain Man has dragged his survival gear heroically through the
sublime Wilderness forcing us to ask questions about how we will
survive and adapt once the Fordian empire finally collapses.”

See bottom of email to read Elinor Whidden’s artist’s statement.*

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The Khyber will also be presenting a touring performance-art series presented by the artist run center Espace Virtuel from Chicoutimi, Quebec.The four-artist tour will be visiting four cities: Caravansérail in Rimouski (Quebec), Third Space Gallery in St John (New Brunswick), Galerie Sans Nom in Moncton (New Brunswick) and finally visiting Halifax for Nocturne on the 17th.

The artists are Francis O’Shaugnessy, Claudine Cotton, Étienne Boulanger and Stéphane Boulianne. You can learn more about Espace Virtuel at www.espacevirtuel.ca

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Also not to be missed is Will Robinson’s audio based piece “Stairway to Heaven” in the Khyber’s main stairwell. (Independent Project 30)

www.khyber.ca

*Elinor Whidden’s artist’s statement:

Harkening back to Henry Ford’s utopian desire to have a “car in every driveway”, I
use the automobile as a metaphor for Progress.  My current studio
practice consists of dismembering and reconfiguring cars into
sculptural assemblages that I can carry on my back.  By inverting the
relationship of human to automobile, I am questioning this notion of
Progress.

My sculptural assemblages reference modes and accessories of
transportation used during the opening of the Western Frontier:
canoes, dogsleds, knapsacks, walking sticks, and snowshoes.  These
objects are then portaged, dragged, or carried along early fur trade
routes.  During these car-carrying performances, the waterways and
trade routes of this historic period stand in as the forefathers to
our current system of highways, freeways and over-passes.

CIRCA 1995