New art exhibit focuses on the ‘problem of the moon’

The weight of the moon and what that represents is the focus of the newest art exhibit at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba.

“The Problem of the Moon” features artists from across the country and their varied works that recognize the immense burden the moon carries as a metaphor with mass, a press release sent out last week by the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (AGSM) said.

Lucie Lederhendler, exhibition curator, said the idea for the theme came to her after she listened to a podcast that used the phrase, “the problem of the moon,” she said.

“It kept sticking in my head. I have a little notebook where I write things down.”

Once the idea came to her, Lederhendler got in touch with different artists she had worked with to see what they were working on.

“Pretty much every artist I talked to, I opened with did they have anything they were working on about the moon, and most of them were working on something,” she said.

The exhibit is made up of those spontaneous works of moon-themed art and works from artists who created pieces for the show, Lederhendler added. The fact that so many of the artists were already working on pieces about the moon, and those who weren’t were eager to do so, helped the curator realize she was on to something.

“I think that really speaks to just a fascination that we all have. Somewhere in our mind, we’re all kind of wanting to work on our relationship with that celestial object,” she said.

Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson from Saltcoats, Sask., represented in her work how much larger the moon looks in the Saskatchewan sky compared to in the seascape of her home country of Japan. Her art tells the story of the entwined relationship between the moon and the ocean.

Photographer Doug Derksen from Brandon worked with moonlight to represent the night sky. His photos

demonstrate how different a camera lens and the human eye can be. Carrie Allison of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has created two video works about the paradoxical gravitational pull between the moon and the earth and how that is reflected in the relationship of mother and child. AJ Little and Oriah Scott of Montréal, Que. worked together to create a portal to the moon, while Bettina Forget, also of Montréal, focuses on the taxonomy of the moon and the scientific systems that educate people about it, touching on gender binary and inequity.

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In two separate art pieces, Mike Pattern of Montréal illustrates the problem of settler ownership and reveals a vision made possible by a decolonized view of the cosmos.

Lederhendler is pleased with the diversity of media that is part of the exhibition, she said.

“There’s animation, there’s both digital and stop motion. There’s cut paper, there’s drawing, there’s paintings, there’s sculpture, and there’s photography.”

Some of the art is literal, some is abstract, and some features elements of both, Lederhendler added.

“You can just walk around and either get it or not get it, let it kind of wash over you, and [other pieces] are really there with a lot of intention,” she said.

The Problem of the Moon exhibit started on April 4 and runs until June 8 at the AGSM in Brandon.

Miranda Leybourne, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brandon Sun

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