Common Room is a two-part exhibition curated by students of UBC’s MA in Critical and Curatorial Studies (CCST). The first part (opening March 3) presents the work of nine emerging artists from the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program. The second part (installed March 21) adds additional work by the MFA students with additional work selected from the Belkin’s permanent collection.
A common room is usually defined as a room in an educational institution that is used outside of class hours. In this exhibition, Common Room not only refers to the physically designated space that the participants share as students, but also connotes the conceptual space shared by any group of artists of varying practices who work within similar circumstances. Any common room is a room of negotiation.
Hovering between the states of aesthetic beauty and repugnance, the exhibited artworks are framed within the context of the common room—an area between the personal chamber of ideas and works, and that of an openly shared space. The uneasy boundaries between attraction and repulsion and the tensions inherent in discursive spheres surface in this exhibition.
The selection of internationally recognized works from the University’s art collection will expand the conceptual space of the exhibition beyond the UBC campus. From the physical to the visceral, Common Room demonstrates different approaches to boundaries in art.
Common Room includes work by Abbas Akhavan, Eryne Donahue, Rebecca Donald, Derek Dunlop, Marilou Lemmens, Colin Miner, Robert Niven, Kristina Lee Podesva and Sarah Turner, with selections from the University’s art collection. Co-curators include Jesse Birch, Sophie Brodovitch, Kegan McFadden and Liz Park.
This exhibition is supported by the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia. The Belkin Satellite gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.