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Warren McLachlan // Field Contemporary // July 7th - Aug. 26thhttp://www.field-contemporary.com/death-valley-escapes1.html

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Jason de Haan @  The Esker Foundation

http://eskerfoundation.com/exhibition/jason-de-haan/

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MIRUNA DRAGAN // SAAG // December 3, 2016 - February 5, 2017

https://www.saag.ca/art/exhibitions/0714-another-name-for-everywhere

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// Corbin Union Residents 2013 // working // thinking //smoking//writing// Photos courtesy Phill Wilson-Perkin ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

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CENTURY CITY 

OPEN WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY BETWEEN SEPT 6 - SEPT 22

12 - 7pm

PV Sept 5, 6 - 9pm

Jason de Haan, Miruna Dragan, Jamie Dyson, Kris Lindskoog, Warren McLachlan, Mitch Speed, Jonathan Trayner, Phill Wilson-Perkin.

In 1908 the town of Corbin was founded at the foot of Coal Mountain in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada. Built on the fortune of an ageing coal baron, Daniel Chase Corbin, the burgeoning town was poised to bring wealth and prosperity to the Kootenay region – a city for the future, built on a trove of black gold...

Fast-forward one hundred years and the prophecy has proved still-born. Rusted machine parts and railway sleepers are overgrown with grass, the bridges over the creek beds have vanished; long since carried away by the current; and the lodgings, constructed from old boxcars are slowly disintegrating into the earth. Only the Centenarians remain: the flora, fauna and ghosts that have endured the last one hundred and six years in this forgotten mountain-scape. These eyes of the forests have witnessed a century long saga and comprise a delicate ecosystem of the living and the non. 

In August of 2012, eight international artists united in Corbin to distil a picture of life in this ghost town. The exhibition Century City focuses on the desire of resident artists to channel the natural and supernatural, in an attempt to resolve the histories, characters and unknown dimensions of life in Corbin over the past century. While in residence they focused on the politics and history of the site, specifically notions of labour and resistance to control. How, as a working town, Corbin related to the surrounding ‘natural’ environment; and the conflicting mythological relationship between the human and the non-human.  

Many of the resulting works were constructed outside, sitting around a fire and developed out of collective discussions about the surrounding region and natural environment. Hummingbirds, a migratory visitor to west Canadian Kootenays, recur as a motif in the exhibition alluding to the transitory nature of human interaction in the Corbin area.

The documentation of natural phenomena is most pronounced in the work of Lindskoog, McLachlan and Wilson-Perkin with the integration of objects relating to the observation of these birds within their practices. In the cases of Speed and de Haan, a plein airs' approach to production catalysed a shift from studio practice to fieldwork. 

A metaphorical approach to the observation of migratory forces and a return to the earth can be seen in the video/installations of Dyson and Dragan; and a transcendental approach to production is posited in Trayner's work, which also features the incidental inclusion of hummingbirds.

Century City is kindly supported by the Artist’s International Development Fund, a threeyear programme run jointly by the British Council and Arts Council England.

ESA SHOWSPACE, 14 Warren St, W1T 5LJ

London, UK

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CENTENARIANS

 OPEN SATURDAYS / SUNDAYS BETWEEN   JULY 27 - AUG 4

12 - 6pm or by appointment                      

PV July 25, 6 - 9 pm

ASC projects - Bond House, 20-32 Goodwood Road, London, SE14 6BL

corbinunionresidencyasc@gmail.com

 Jason de Haan, Miruna Dragan, Jamie Dyson, Kris Lindskoog, Warren McLachlan, Jonathan Trayner, Mitch Speed, Phill Wilson-Perkin.

 Piecing together histories of a ghost town leaves a mountain of unanswered questions. 

Graves can’t talk after all. Oral histories meander and meld between the antiquated media that is unearthed - newspaper clippings, old photographs, maps and diagrams of the locale all provide an axis point for conjecture… traces.. a portal to a time when a small mining town, the town of Corbin, British Columbia first began. The year was 1908.

 Built on the fortune of the aging coal baron, Daniel Chase Corbin, the town boomed in the early 1910’s with a large strip mining operation that saw miners unite from disparate backgrounds. Immigrants from Europe and Asia worked alongside second generation Canadians and Americans, seeking prosperity and fortune on Coal Mountain, an adjacent slope that housed a trove of the treasured black gold.

 But by 1935 the town had seen disaster, starvation and destitution at the hands of its tyrannical founder. Infuriated by union activity and labor disputes Corbin unleashed his fury in February of that year, driving a tractor through a crowd of union protesters, inciting a bloody riot. Workers united and battled against special police, company thugs and the tyranny of the mines founder. There was no resolution to the battle of wills and the mine ground to a halt. By 1951 the town was abandoned.

 Just over a century has passed now since the founding of Corbin and, aside from a few seasonal residents, only the Centenarians remain:  the flora, fauna and ghosts that have endured the last 106 years in this forgotten mountain-scape. These eyes of the forests have witnessed a century long saga and comprise a delicate ecosystem of the living and the non.

 In August of 2012, seven international artists united in Corbin to distill a picture of life in this ghost town. The exhibition Centenarians focuses on the desire of resident artists to channel the natural and supernatural, in an attempt to resolve the histories, characters and unknown dimensions of life in Corbin over the past century.

 A strong focus on the politics and history of the site, specifically within notions of labour and resistance to control; how, as a working town, Corbin relates to the surrounding ‘natural’ environment; and the conflicting mythological relationship between the human and the non human’ are currents that run through the work of the CUR 2012 resident artists.

Centenariansis kindly supported by the Artists' International Development Fund, a three-year programme run jointly by the British Council and Arts Council England.