The New Brunswick Arts Board is an arm’s length arts funding agency with a legislated mandate to facilitate and promote the creation of art as well as administering funding programs for professional artists in the province.
Upcoming Craft Exhibitions
By Claire Shiplett, Project Manager, NB Crafts Council
The New Brunswick Crafts Council/Conseil des métiers d’art du Nouveau-Brunswick (NBCC/CMANB) is thrilled to present two traveling craft exhibitions for 2016. The first is the NBCC Biennale, curated by Bronwyn Gallagher, titled Spectrum. This is a group exhibition that will showcase contemporary fine craft from the Council’s Juried Membership, a group which represents over 100 professional craftspeople from across the province and beyond. Spectrum will encompass selected works in various mediums with a focus on colour/absence of colour. It will challenge the viewer
to critically think about the effect colour has on our experiences and will encourage viewers to consider how one piece affects the other, within the broad spectrum of design, technique, aesthetic and tradition. The second exhibition is Sharing Stories, curated by Aidan Stanley and presented by the Aboriginal Crafts & Culture Collective. This exhibition aims to share and celebrate visual art and fine craft by Aboriginal artists from the Atlantic Region. We’re inviting artists to tell their stories, share techniques and traditions, express their creative spirits, and celebrate artistic communities. Any medium can be submitted: painting, sculpture, carvings, birch bark, basketry, beading, leather, quillwork, pottery.
{ We’re still accepting submissions! Our calls for entry can be found on our website at nbcraftscouncil.ca/exhibitions. Submission deadline is February 8, 2016. }
The first stop for both exhibitions will be Sunbury Shores Arts & Nature Centre in St. Andrews, NB, on display through April 2016. The Sharing Stories exhibition will then be divided between the Moncton and the Fredericton Public Libraries for the month of June. June is “Aboriginal Heritage Month” in Moncton and we’re very excited that Fredericton’s Mayor Brad Woodside will proclaim June as “Aboriginal Crafts & Culture Month” for the City of Fredericton. We’d like to challenge other organizations and individuals to develop programming for the month of June in support of this initiative. The NBCC is planning interactive programming at the venues, including weekly programs at the Fredericton Public Library for Sharing Stories: artist talks, craft demos, storytelling, and potentially chanting and music for all ages. In August through September, both Spectrum and the full Sharing Stories exhibition will be on display at Government House in Fredericton.
I think art and craft is a window, an open channel through which both the maker and the viewer can access information. It’s essentially a two-way dialogue, and it’s accessible to everyone on some level. These pieces are the manifestations of the ideas, traditions, cultures and imaginations of the participating artists and craftspeople. They’re willing to be open and share them with us, and that is a personal invitation to learn and experience something that comes directly from their perspectives. Through traveling these shows together and organizing them to share the same spaces, we hope that the public will gain awareness, understanding and interest in contemporary and traditional artistic practices from artists and craftspeople of this province and the Atlantic Region. These exhibitions aim to start dialogues and engage viewers of all ages with work and narratives that they may not have had much exposure to.
The Aboriginal Crafts & Culture Collective consists of the New Brunswick Crafts Council, JEDI NB, the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design, Valerie Jean, Katie Augustine and Samaqani Cocahq (Natalie Sappier).
