Reverie
AN ADVANCED STUDENT PRACTICE EXHIBITION AT THE GEORGE FRY GALLERY
June 2 to August 12, 2022
10am to 4pm
Click here to watch the Reverie video.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? — Mary Oliver
We are not here to merely visit this world. Nor are we machines to serve at the busy altar of productivity. The students of Advanced Studio Practice know a secret worth sharing about living a meaningful life. They see the real world as more than a 9-5 grind. They are change-makers who have followed the calling of creativity. They are daring to live a dream.
A reverie is a daydream or musing state of being pleasantly lost in thoughts. This fantastic condition allows us to have visions and fanciful ideas. If we can first imagine it, we can make it happen. As a college, we take the business of ideas and visualization seriously. It is a crucial part of the design process and a way to solve problems and bring us to new places. We believe in a different way to be productive, one that does not quash the urge to dream.
Through this graduate exhibition, Reverie, seven emerging artists; Laura Boudreau, Maëlle Charenton, Behrouz Foladi, Shannon Hardie, Cheryl Lavigne, Wren Swim, and Oakley Rain Wysote Gray; celebrate a year of working with their hands. This group is a diverse and talented international cohort that has come together from Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation, Iran, France, and across the Maritimes. They boldly committed to a year of intense self-directed studio work while acquiring professional business skills. The result is a material bounty of riches, including art, design, and fine craft objects. The themes expressed through the work include environmentalism, decolonization, ecology, the more-than-human, social justice, and global visual culture. Their works span textiles, fashion, jewellery, graphic design, 3D design, painting and drawing.
Reverie demonstrates the richness of engaging in material making and living a creative life. This exhibit is an important story of the meaning and joy to be found in genuinely allowing ourselves to be lost in the studio. These talented graduates prove their application is anything but wasting time. They are speaking up and speaking back through materiality. They are building a hopeful future through creatively working together in craft and design. They imagine new possibilities through the equitable process of artmaking. They prove that a community of art and design is a social center, and learning within it, is a humanizing process. Reverie marks a productive year well spent. It sets the foundation for fulfillment in making and musing with the creative journey for a better future.