Signs of Change

April 1 – May 8, 2010
Exhibition, Installation

About the Program

In Signs of Change, Nicole Dextras brings her sculptural text works from the last five years together along with new work created during her exhibition at grunt gallery. The exhibition showcases her work with ice typography through photographic prints and off-site installations. The photographs depict past ice installations and the off-site component features ice text placed in the Vancouver land/cityscape on a weekly basis. These ice letters and eco-installations interrupt the expected narratives of the landscape and alert us to the landscape around us and our relationship to it. Using ice as a medium, Dextas subverts the authority of the English language and the commerce of signage by representing them as vulnerable and shifting. As the sculptures of etymology change from solid to liquid, the phase of transition becomes symbolic of the interconnectedness of language and culture to landscape, affected by time and constantly shifting and transforming in nature. The presence of the melting words relates to the transience of our relationship to the land, the politics of territory, the stories of presence, and the state of the environment.

Artist

Nicole Dextras

Identifier

2010.0401 SIG

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive

Location

grunt gallery (second location)
116-350 E. 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5T 4R8
Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

In copyright. For uses beyond Fair Dealing, research requests, corrections, takedown requests, or other inquiries, please contact grunt gallery: archives@grunt.ca