Centre A Announces Highly Anticipated New Exhibition by Toronto-based Artist Ed Pien
Exploring Water and the Human Condition
Opening September 16, 2022
Ed Pien, The Hungry Sea, 2018, lithograph, 29 x 22 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
Vancouver, B.C., Canada (September 1, 2022) – Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art is proud to announce Tracing Water, a new solo exhibition by Toronto-based artist, Ed Pien.
The exhibition is curated by Centre A’s Executive Director/Curator Henry Heng Lu and will run from September 16 through November 12, 2022.
Opening Reception:
Friday, September 16, 6 PM – 9 PM
Join us for this celebration! The artist will be in attendance.
Location:
Unit 205, 268 Keefer Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V6A 1X5
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday to Saturday, 12 PM – 6 PM
About the Exhibition:
Tracing Water presents an extensive assembly of work by Toronto-based artist Ed Pien. Ranging from drawing to lithography to prints and video, the works span over 20 years and explore and incorporate water in these artistic creations.
Two Worlds, for instance, comprises 12 drawings excerpted from a large series of narrative-based drawings. This suite of drawings imagines a future where humans battle watery beings to gain domination and control. The war wages on for centuries, and amidst destruction, suffering and death, hybridized, part water and part humans are born. The epic war finally comes to a halt as the two originating factions can no longer be distinguished.
Recent works by Pien included in the exhibition delve more deeply into exploring the sentience of water, that water has co-agency, liveliness, and creativity. According to Pien, water is a material that is highly process-based and plays a significant role in how a drawing can unfold. These explorations include photographs entitled Breath that capture ephemeral drawings made by the artist’s breath in minus 45 degrees.
Other works, such as Ocean Water Drawing, involve the participation of captured salty ocean water and how it makes and leaves its marks as it intervenes with white ink. The subsequent marks and images made are in direct response to the trace residuals marked up on the surface of the black-coloured papers as ocean water makes its inevitable escape.
Ed Pien is a Canadian artist based in Toronto. He has been making art for nearly 40 years. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, he immigrated to Canada with his family at an early age. Pien divides his time between Toronto and Havana.
Pien has shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, in venues that include the Drawing Center, NYC; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Canadian Culture Centre in Paris; The Goethe-Institut in Berlin; The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; The Art Gallery of Ontario; The Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Songzhuang Art Centre, Beijing; The National Gallery of Canada. He has participated in the 2000 and 2002 Montreal Biennales; the 18th Edition of the Sydney Biennale; “Oh Canada”, at MASS MoCA. Pien also presented work at the 5th Edition of the Moscow Biennale, and the Beijing International Art Biennale. He has also participated in the Curitiba Biennial, in Brazil and the Bienal Internacional de Asunción, in Paraguay. His project, in the form of photographs, videos and an installation, involving a small group of Cuban Elders exploring the notion of time, is currently being presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario until June 2023.
His work is collected widely and includes FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France; The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; The National Gallery of Canada; The Art Gallery of Ontario; The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; The Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; The Mendel Art Gallery; The Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina; as well as other institutions and private collections.
Centre A would like to acknowledge the support of the David Lam Centre at Simon Fraser University and the Historic Joy Kogawa House for the realization of Tracing Water.
About Centre A
Centre A is situated in Vancouver’s Chinatown, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We honour, respect, and give thanks to our hosts. Centre A gratefully acknowledges the support of all of our funders, donors, programming partners, and Centre A members.
Centre A is the only public art gallery in Canada dedicated to contemporary Asian and Asian-diasporic perspectives since 1999. Centre A is committed to providing a platform for engaging diverse communities through public access to the arts, creating mentorship opportunities for emerging artists/arts professionals, and stimulating critical dialogue through provocative exhibitions and innovative public programs that complicate understandings of migrant experiences and diasporic communities. In addition to our exhibition space, we house a reading room with one of the best collections of Asian art books in the country, including the Finlayson Collection of Rare Asian Art Books.
The gallery is wheelchair and walker accessible. If you have specific accessibility needs, please contact us at +1 (604) 683-8326 or info@centrea.org.
NEW GLASGOW, N.S. – Police in New Glasgow, N.S., say a 44-year-old woman faces fraud charges after funds went missing from the Pictou East Progressive Conservative Association.
New Glasgow Regional Police began the investigation on Oct. 7, after Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston reported that an undisclosed amount of money had gone missing from his riding association’s account.
Police allege that a volunteer who was acting as treasurer had withdrawn funds from the association’s account between 2016 and 2024.
The force says it arrested Tara Amanda Cohoon at her Pictou County, N.S., residence on Oct. 11.
They say investigators seized mobile electronic devices, bank records and cash during a search of the home.
Cohoon has since been released and is to appear in Pictou provincial court on Dec. 2 to face charges of forgery, uttering a forged document, theft over $5,000 and fraud over $5,000.
Police say their investigation remains ongoing.
Houston revealed the investigation to reporters on Oct. 9, saying he felt an “incredible level of betrayal” over the matter.
The premier also said a volunteer he had known for many years had been dismissed from the association and the party.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
PICTOU, N.S. – A Nova Scotia excavation company has been fined $80,000 after a worker died when scaffolding collapsed on one of its job sites.
In a decision released Wednesday, a Nova Scotia provincial court judge in Pictou, N.S., found the failure by Blaine MacLane Excavation Ltd. to ensure scaffolding was properly installed led to the 2020 death of Jeff MacDonald, a self-employed electrician.
The sentence was delivered after the excavation company was earlier found guilty of an infraction under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Judge Bryna Hatt said in her decision she found the company “failed in its duty” to ensure that pins essential to the scaffolding’s stability were present at the work site.
Her decision said MacDonald was near the top of the structure when it collapsed on Dec. 9, 2020, though the exact height is unknown.
The judge said that though the excavation company did not own the scaffolding present on its job site, there was no evidence the company took steps to prevent injury, which is required under legislation.
MacDonald’s widow testified during the trial that she found her husband’s body at the job site after he didn’t pick up their children as planned and she couldn’t get in touch with him over the phone.
Julie MacDonald described in her testimony how she knew her husband had died upon finding him due to her nursing training, and that she waited alone in the dark for emergency responders to arrive after calling for help.
“My words cannot express how tragic this accident was for her, the children, and their extended family,” Hatt wrote in the sentencing decision.
“No financial penalty will undo the damage and harm that has been done, or adequately represent the loss of Mr. MacDonald to his family, friends, and our community.”
In addition to the $80,000 fine, the New Glasgow-based company must also pay a victim-fine surcharge of $12,000 and provide $8,000 worth of community service to non-profits in Pictou County.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Investigators found the remains of a 77-year-old American man on Wednesday at the scene of a fire that destroyed a hotel in western Newfoundland on the weekend.
Eugene Earl Spoon, a guest at the hotel, was visiting Newfoundland from Kansas. His remains were found Wednesday morning during a search of the debris left behind after the fire tore through the Driftwood Inn in Deer Lake, N.L., on Saturday, the RCMP said in a news release.
“RCMP (Newfoundland and Labrador) extends condolences to the family and friends of the missing man,” the news release said.
Spoon was last seen Friday evening in the community of about 4,800 people in western Newfoundland. The fire broke out early Saturday morning, the day Spoon was reported missing.
Several crews from the area fought the flames for about 16 hours before the final hot spot was put out, and police said Wednesday that investigators are still going through the debris.
Meanwhile, the provincial Progressive Conservative Opposition reiterated its call for a wider review of what happened.
“Serious questions have been raised about the fire, and the people deserve answers,” Tony Wakeham, the party’s leader, said in a news release Wednesday. “A thorough investigation must be conducted to determine the cause and prevent such tragedies in the future.”
The party has said it spoke to people who escaped the burning hotel, and they said alarm and sprinkler systems did not seem to have been activated during the fire. However, Stephen Rowsell, the Deer Lake fire chief, has said there were alarms going off when crews first arrived.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
