Feminist Land Art Retreat, Free Rein

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Opening Reception and Artist Talk
May 30, 7-9pm
Audain Gallery

Feminist Land Art Retreat (FLAR) is a conceptual project that provokes reflection on relief, escape and wildness within contemporary life. FLAR draws upon the visual and linguistic iconography of canonical conceptual and feminist art, fashion, graphic design, and advertising in their posters, photographs, sculptures, performances, and videos. By proposing a feminist land art retreat, yet perpetually suspending its manifestation, FLAR opens a space to consider the social and cultural paradigms that construct femininity, nature and solitude.

Free Rein features a new video work titled No Man's Land which witnesses the lives of horses, the women who work with them, and the landscapes they share. With attention to interiority and intimacy, FLAR pictures the interdependence and influence between these sentient beings in their daily routines of work and pleasure.

FLAR initiated this project through close observation of tropes within the western film genre, grand gestures of earth art, and colonial allegories in space exploration that have yoked the sovereignty of land, elements, animals and women to men's vision. Working with strategies of feminist cinema, science fiction symbolism and social utopianism, No Man's Land proposes alternative images of freedom and autonomy to the lone ranger or intrepid explorer. Through their feminist lens, the concept of "no man's land" is mercurial: it is land free from the presence and pressure of man, land relations beyond ownership and a space beyond the rein of the image.

Parallel to the exhibition, FLAR will present a new work, Transmissions, on the Pattison billboard at the corner of West Hastings St. and Abbott St. Aligned with this public exhibition, FLAR will also produce a new poster series that will be available in the gallery and disseminated around the city.

Feminist Land Art Retreat's recent solo exhibitions include No Man's Land, ACUD Gallery, Berlin; Heavy Flow: The Re-Release, Ginerva Gambino, Cologne; Duty Free, Studio for Propositional Cinema, Düsseldorf; and Last Resort, Kunsthaus Bregenz Billboards, Bregenz.

Curated by Amy Kazymerchyk.

Supported by Canada Council of the Arts and British Columbia Arts Council. No Man's Land was produced with support of the Western Front Media Arts Residency. The offsite presentation of Transmissions is sponsored by Pattison Outdoor Advertising. The screening Groundwork is co-presented with DIM Cinema and The Cinematheque. The first chapter of No Man's Land was presented at ACUD Gallery, Berlin, April 29 - May 28, 2017.

Feminist Land Art Retreat, No Man's Land (production still), 2018. Courtesy the artist.