Anna Leonowens Gallery, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Dalhousie Art Gallery are pleased to present the first iteration of //RESPONSIVE: International Light Art Project Halifax, exhibiting this year in Halifax, Nova Scotia from October 18 to 21, 2017. National and international artists have been invited to participate with projects that link indoor and outdoor spaces in the city’s centre.
This 4 night public circuit will stretch from the Anna Leonowens Gallery in Granville Court to Dalhousie School of Architecture with stops at Halifax City Hall, the Church of St. David, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Old Spring Garden Road Memorial Library and the Public Gardens. All art works will use light as material or medium and darkness as their canvas. The exhibition runs nightly from 7.00 pm to midnight at all sites, indoor and outdoor.
The Anna Leonowens Gallery will showcase an interactive mapping by Cuppetelli + Mendoza, a UV-light site-specific intervention by Ghorbel + Mhiri and a neon-based work by Duane Linklater from the collection of the AGNS. All of these works address the line as an element of artistic reflection. At City Hall in Grand Parade Square, the artists’ collective joeressen+kessner have developed a site-specific multi-media intervention. The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia will present a large-scale work by Mischa Kuball and an interactive work by Hartung + Trenz, both working with projected text. As well Judith Roeder and Ursula Handleigh will have works on display at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, both based on the interplay of light and optic materials.
St. David’s Presbyterian Church will host the performances of Kurt Laurenz Theinert who will improvise on a visual piano in a 360° projection environment. For the former Spring Garden Road Memorial Library, the artists’ collective Hartung + Trenz mount a site-specific architectural projection. Across the street the Dalhousie School of Architecture will display a space-intervention by molitor + kuzmin who use fluorescent tubes as their main building material. On the edge of Public Gardens, Kelly Mark will use TV-screens to transform the empty Power House.
The unique exhibition project was initiated by art historian and gallerist Ralf Seippel [DE] and entrepreneur and art enthusiast Juergen Probst [DE/CAN]. Together they paved the way for the international initiative that led to this first edition of //RESPONSIVE. They not only had the idea but also the means to spark this collaboration. They discussed with possible partners until they found the perfect team with outstanding motivation in Halifax. For a proper start, the Probst family provided a substantial budget. Backing innovative projects and taking responsibility for ideas is their shared passion and //RESPONSIVE is their largest undertaking across the Atlantic.
Ralf Seippel formed the curatorial collective with Melanie Colosimo [Director of Anna Leonowens Gallery at NSCAD University], Sarah Fillmore [Chief Curator of Art Gallery of Nova Scotia], and Peter Dykhuis [Director of Dalhousie Art Gallery at Dalhousie University] and Bettina Pelz [Curator with focus on light in fine arts] as its artistic director. In a mutual effort, they discussed concept, strategies and organization of the innovative format. //RESPONSIVE is the first result of the fruitful cooperation and it is the first part of a series of four exhibition projects, two in Halifax [2017/2019] and two in Cologne, Germany [2018/2020] named COLLUMINA.