As The Willful Plot invites us to consider sites of tension through an expanded notion of the garden, Sound Plots considers these intersections of site, human and non-human ecologies through sound. Taking the notion of a plot as both a story, an area of ground and an idea or score that prompts response, Sound Plots amplifies and extends conversations, themes and ideas from The Willful Plot outside the gallery through a series of audio recordings of talks, conversations and interventions.
Check back for new episodes over the course of the exhibition.
Episode 1: Curator’s Tour with Melanie O’Brian and Opening Readings
An introduction to The Willful Plot from curator Melanie O’Brian, followed by recorded readings from the exhibition’s opening reception. The readings include quotations by Derek Jarman, Glenn Lewis, Rebecca Solnit and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing read by Melanie O’Brian, Glenn Lewis, Ellinee Nelson, Karen Zalamea, Jay Pahre and Bahar Mohazabnia. Download the transcript.
Episode 2: Online Artist Talk with Rehab Nazzal
An online, recorded artist talk with Rehab Nazzal. In this talk, Nazzal discusses We, the Wild Plants and Fruit Trees and Canada Park, alongside how she came to make these works, the will of plants and the will of people. Download the transcript.
Episode 3: Online Artist Talk with Dana Qaddah
An online, recorded artist talk with Dana Qaddah. In this talk, Qaddah considers Sidani Roof, including the images and writing. Through the work, Qaddah discusses the city of Beirut, rooftop gardens and the nature of tending to growing things. Download the transcript.
The Willful Plot brings together artists' practices to expand the notion of the garden as a site of tension between wild and cultivated, temporal and perpetual, public and private, sovereign and colonized. Here, the garden is considered by the artists not only as a delineated patch of earth, but as a story and a will to drive that story to complicate the way in which cultures and individuals see themselves in relation to ecology, sociality, belief and possibility. It is an opportunity to look at human relationships with land, flora, fauna and their interrelatedness. In its willfulness, the resistance garden is a counter-site, a heterotopia for alternative cultivation and potential transformation.
[more]The Willful Plot brings together artists’ practices to expand the notion of the garden as a site of tension between wild and cultivated, temporal and perpetual, public and private, sovereign and colonized. This online Reading Room includes texts expanding on different notions of the garden and more-than-human relationships, as well as the political implications of thinking willfully, with and alongside.
[more]Join us for a concert by the UBC Contemporary Players directed by Paolo Bortolussi and teaching assistant Ramsey Sadaka in a program that celebrates the Belkin’s current exhibition The Willful Plot.
[more]Join us for a series of lectures at the Belkin. We invite Jane Wolff, Desirée Valaderes and Sara Jacobs to address The Willful Plot.
[more]In this release of Works from the Collection, Jay Pahre considers work by Charmian Johnson in The Willful Plot exhibition.
[more]Gabi Dao's work from 2022 is displayed in the Walter C. Koerner Library as part of the exhibition The Willful Plot, which runs at the Belkin from 13 January-16 April 2023.
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