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.
PITTSBURGH – Sidney Crosby plans to remain a Pittsburgh Penguin for at least three more years.
The Penguins announced on Monday that they re-signed the 37-year-old from Cole Harbour, N.S., to a two-year contract extension that has an average annual value of US$8.7 million. The deal runs through the 2026-27 season.
Crosby was eligible to sign an extension on July 1 with him entering the final season of a 12-year, $104.4-million deal that carries an $8.7-million salary cap hit.
At the NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas last Monday, he said things were positive and he was optimistic about a deal getting done.
The three-time Stanley Cup champion is coming off a 42-goal, 94-point campaign that saw him finish tied for 12th in the league scoring race.
Crosby has spent all 19 of his NHL seasons in Pittsburgh, amassing 592 goals and 1,004 assists in 1,272 career games.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VICTORIA – British Columbia Premier David Eby has announced his government has committed to earlier and enhanced pensions for wildland firefighters, saying the province owes them a “deep debt of gratitude” for their efforts in battling recent fire seasons.
Eby says in a statement the province and the BC General Employees’ Union have reached an agreement-in-principle to “enhance” pensions for firefighting personnel employed directly by the BC Wildfire Service.
It says the change will give wildland firefighters provisions like those in other public-safety careers such as ambulance paramedics and corrections workers.
The statement says wildfire personnel could receive their earliest pensions up to five years before regular members of the public service pension plan.
The province and the union are aiming to finalize the agreement early next year with changes taking effect in 2026, and while eligibility requirements are yet to be confirmed, the statement says the “majority” of workers at the BC Wildfire Service would qualify.
Union president Paul Finch says wildfire fighters “take immense risks and deserve fair compensation,” and the pension announcement marks a “major victory.”
“This change will help retain a stable, experienced workforce, ready to protect our communities when we need them most,” Finch says in the statement.
About 1,300 firefighters were employed directly by the wildfire service this year. B.C. has increased the service’s permanent full-time staff by 55 per cent since 2022.
About 350 firefighting personnel continue to battle more than 200 active blazes across the province, with 60 per cent of them now classified as under control.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. says it has signed a deal with U.K. rail infrastructure owner Network Rail to help upgrade and digitize its signalling over the next 10 years.
Network Rail has launched a four-billlion pound program to upgrade signalling across its network over the coming decade.
The company says the modernization will bring greater reliability across the country through a mixture of traditional signalling and digital control.
AtkinsRéalis says it has secured two of the eight contracts awarded.
The Canadian company formerly known as SNC-Lavalin will work independently on conventional signalling contract.
AtkinsRéalis will also partner with Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A.(CAF) in a new joint venture on a digital signalling contract.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
