Open Spaces: Windows to a View
This program offers local and regional artists an opportunity to showcase their art in a highly visible downtown location while working with a professional guest curator. The program, which began in 2009, celebrates the diversity and quality of works by regional artists, while enlivening the Centre Street LRT platform on 7 Avenue between 1 Street S.E. and Centre Street.
Current exhibition
On August 15, 2020 from 2 to 4 p.m., join artist Alana Bartol and herbalist, botanist, and educator Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed, owner of Latifa's Herbs and co-owner of ALCLA Native Plants for a downtown plant walk exploring plants that are often overlooked in urban spaces in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). We will look at how to identify plants (some considered weeds), using principals of botany and learn about the edible and medicinal properties of plants.
To register, please email hello@alanabartol.com. Registration will be limited to 15 people, but additional dates will be added depending on interest.
Alana Bartol, Essential Oils (for Alberta)
Alana Bartol is a respected Canadian artist and teacher based in Calgary. She was recently longlisted for the National Gallery of Canada and Sobey Art Foundation's 2019 Sobey Award, a prestigious award for young Canadian artists.
In 2016, The City of Calgary Public Art Program launched Open AiR, a pilot community-based public art residency. Open AiR offered artists a 12-week residency where they were embedded into two communities. Working out of the historic Fire Hall No. 6 on Memorial Drive N.W., artists were encouraged to consider both the Hillhurst Sunnyside community and the adjacent West Downtown community.
As part of her residency, Bartol co-facilitated plant walks and workshops with a focus on smell and plants, as well as their edible and medicinal properties. She explored these concepts through enfleurage which is a process used to extract fragrances or essential oils from plants and botanical materials. Essential Oils (for Alberta) is a series comprised of photographs that document the artist’s experiments with the enfleurage process. She used botanical (and other materials such as coffee beans and socks) from both communities that were donated, purchased or foraged.
Alana Bartol, Enfleurage: Thistle and Wild Mustard (Hillhurst Sunnyside, Downtown West), 2016, colour photograph on paper.
Plant walk with Alana Bartol and Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed 2016.
Essential Oils (for Alberta) exhibition at Open Spaces.