From Remote Stars (2025)

21/05/2022

And just like that, the From Remote Stars exhibition is being de-installed. Be sure to stay tuned for the exhibition catalogue, which is forthcoming. Our podcast is still available, so be sure to check it out at the link in our bio if you haven’t listened yet.

Image description: Left side of exhibition has dymaxion wallpaper and video installation of Jessica Karuhanga's work. Right side has a yellow wall with a black banner that says "From Remote Stars" behind a table holding ephemera.

18/05/2022

A huge thank you to everyone who checked out the From Remote Stars exhibition this spring. It was wonderful to see everyone at the closing reception to celebrate.

Image description: Entrance of exhibition, wall is papered with black and white image of Buckminster Fuller pouring tea, and the work "Maple Moose Forever" hangs on the wall.

14/05/2022

💫 Friendly reminder about the closing reception for From Remote Stars happening this Sunday, May 15th, from 2:00-4:00 pm EST, ! 💫

Follow the link in our bio to learn more and register.

Image description: Poster in blue and gold with text: Closing reception. From Remote Stars & 20 Works. Sunday May 15th, 2-4 pm .

13/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Congratulations to artist Katherine Boyer who is one of 25 visual artists longlisted for the 2022 Sobey Art Award! You can see her 2015 work Maman, Nous Détournons in the From Remote Stars exhibition on now London.

Katherine Boyer
Maman, Nous Détournons, 2015
acrylic beads, stroud cloth, rocking chair
Collection of the artist

📷Credit: Toni Hafkenscheid

Katherine Boyer’s work is deeply linked to Métis history, material culture, and personal family narratives. She describes the laborious process of beading “as a conduit for building upon ancestor relations.” This sculpture references domestic space while suggesting a world in which the connections between plants, animals, humans, and water are more essential than the distinctions among them. Where Fuller may have treated resources as something to be exploited, measured, and used, Boyer’s Métis teachings imagine a world in which humans are vulnerable and must work with, rather than manage, the resources of the planet.

Image description: Wooden rocking chair with navy blue floral embroidered cushions sits on a white platform.

13/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Today, we are featuring a piece by Amanda Myers / Kitaay bizhikikwe. Keep reading to hear her own words about the piece.

“Through a project with the London Arts Council I was collaborating with local Poet Tom Cull, we were discussing Deshkan ziibing (Antler River), the history of the land there at the forks, the displacement of Indigenous peoples from the land through that history and our continued exclusion upon that land, that waterway. As we spoke I could see that Anishinaabekwe (Anishinaabe woman) at the forks. As a painter, the concepts come to me finished and I unpack them layer by layer in my mind’s eye so that I can determine the best techniques to bring it to life. In the final piece you see a historical image of the River Thames in London, England overlaid onto a contemporary image of the forks of Deshkan ziibing (Antler River - Thames River) in London, Ontario. You see the Midewiwin lodge placed on the horizon, a reminder of our resilience as Anishinaabeg in ensuring those teachings are here for the generations to come, and that water carrier, that beautiful Anishinaabekwe with her copper vessel caring for that life source of water, our Mother’s veins, and considering the settlers upon that land. When I considered how it is we can do better, I look to Anishinaabekwewag, all those that have and continue to ensure the water brings life.”

Kitaay bizhikikwe/Amanda Myers
They Know Better, 2017
acrylic on canvas
Collection of the artist

📷Credit: Toni Ha

Image description: Painting of London, Ontario, with structures from London, England superimposed. An Anishinaabe woman stands at the forks with a copper vessel, and the Midewiwin lodge sits on the horizon.

11/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Today, we are featuring Heather Campbell’s work. Keep reading to hear Heather’s words about the piece.

“Well the scene itself is based on the hill across from our town of Rigolet. I love the fact that geodesic domes were invented long after the invention of the igloo, but the basics are still the same. The dome shape will also protect from high winds that are already common in the area. My painting method includes creating a coloured background by pouring diluted inks onto wet mineral paper and letting it dry. Certain areas can be masked off with tape, which is what I did for the igloo houses. Afterwards I draw in the details.”

Heather Campbell
7th Generation Inuit Community, 2015
pen, ink, lithographic crayon, and pencil crayon on Mylar
Collection of The Rooms, 2017.04.01

This work depicts an intentionally ambivalent scene of an Inuit community seven generations in the future. In response to climate change, the community has embraced clean energy including wind and solar power. Despite adaptation, artist Heather Campbell is adamant that the environment will have wrought significant changes to Inuit ways of life: “We are all living in the hills now because the polar ice caps have melted, raising the sea level. The earth has become warmer, resulting in the growth of trees further north. But the environment is slowly recovering from what past generations have done to it.”

Image description: Illustration of domes and windmills on a grassy hill with trees under a blue sky.

10/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Today, we are featuring Amanda White’s work. Keep reading to hear Amanda’s words about the piece.

“The cyanotype series Movement Compositions is part of my ongoing focus on plant life and explorations of the various ways in which plants are encountered and considered in contemporary cultural imaginings. Each piece in this series includes ten figures of plant movement collected from the 1886 book The Power of Movement in Plants by Charles Darwin. These figures trace the movement of individual plants over the course of hours or sometimes days. They are recontextualized in these works within a community of plants as they might be together in a garden or in the wild, resembling constellation maps. In addition to Movement Composition for a Forest; the series includes Movement Composition for Ten Flowers; Movement Composition for a Vegetable Garden; and Movement Composition for Ten Cabbages.”

Amanda White
Movement Composition for a Forest, 2017
cyanotype on paper
Collection of the artist

Fuller thought of the earth as a “little spaceship” hurtling through the cosmos. Humans on the spaceship had to carefully apportion resources to plan for futures unknown. Here White’s work presents a cyanotype (sun print) cosmos map of a different sort, recontextualizing ten figures of plant movement from the 1886 book The Power of Movement in Plants by Charles Darwin. What Fuller hinted at White makes clear: the cosmos and the plant world are intimately connected, with humans as interlocutors. A terrestrial cosmos lies beneath our feet as plants move in what curator Jacqueline Bell calls a “silent dance” of movement invisible to the human eye—a dance responding to the light of the sun, our closest and least remote star.

Image description: Blue sheet with white illustrations of constellation maps and white text beneath.

10/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Today, we are featuring Erin Elder’s work. Keep reading to hear Erin’s words about the piece.

“All of the drawings in the series are taken from photos. None are imagined; therefore they are a collection of real world “utopias.” I would never say that my work celebrates private property as, for over a decade, my work has called into question all notions of land ownership.”

Erin Elder
Visionary Dwellings, 2018, including:
Shingle Dome
Grass House
House of the Century
Crafts 3
each pen and ink on paper
Collection of the artist; House of the Century on loan from Sarah Holbert and Kyle Pfister

Drawing on past and future visions of possible dwellings, Erin Elder’s series of visionary homes and buildings is whimsical and thought-provoking. What might your visionary dwelling look like? Would it have a turf roof? A geodesic dome? A rainbow-coloured front door? Reflecting the artist’s larger interest in communes and utopian living, Elder’s works speak to an aim of securing shelter and a home, but they also argue for a more optimistic take on what might otherwise be a celebration of private property. These dwellings seem communal, sustainable, and built with the land in mind. As such they are remarkably future-oriented even as they might draw on past models.

Image description: Four illustrations hang on a white wall. From left to right: a grassy arched house, an submarine-esque stone house on a beach, a modern house in the desert, and a shingle dome house.

07/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Today, we are featuring Jason McLean’s work. Keep reading to hear Jason’s words about the piece.

“The work is the less known Spasm band members stamp padded in acrylic ink on paper. Greg Curnoe used to do a lot of stamp pad work, and stamp padding feels a lot like it's from Fuller's era. The Spasm band is included because the place they used to practice at, The York Hotel, which became Call The Office, is the spot Fuller saw them practice at. I used to frequent that place for a number of years in my youth. Also, in the drawing I mention Zev Asher, a noise musician, who I toured with, who made a film on the Spasm band.”

Jason McLean
Maple Moose Forever, 2019
ink on paper
Collection of the artist

Jason McLean’s works combine diaristic memory mapping with encyclopedic research into place, in this case, London, Ontario. Maple Moose Forever remembers Fuller’s 1968 visit, and positions a tiny geodesic dome alongside the York Hotel and members of the Nihilist Spasm Band. Landmarks that would be recognized by those familiar with the London that Fuller visited—the 20/20 Gallery, Region, and 20 Cent Magazine—are juxtaposed with McLean’s own memories of London in the 1990s, all of them imagined from the perspective of his current home in New York City.

Image description: Maple Moose Forever by Jason McLean, map of London, Ontario featuring stamp pad work and locations that Fuller visited.

04/05/2022

💫 Friendly reminder about the Trinity3 screening and discussion happening tomorrow, May 5th, from 12:00-1:30 pm EST, via Zoom! 💫

Follow the links in our bio to learn more and register.

Image description: Poster with photo of blue sky and birds flying off and on a telephone wire. Text below: Mary Kavanagh, Installation view of Trinity3, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 2020. Two channel video installation, Image courtesy of the artist. Trinity3 Screening and Discussion with Mary Kavanagh and Sara Matthews. May 5, 12:00-1:30 pm EST. Register at the QR code or at https://remotestars.ca. Museum London, Western FIMS.

02/05/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Gillian Dykeman is an artist who creates performance, participatory performance, installations, videos, sculpture, and drawings. She hosted and produced the podcast Working (it) Out, and is behind two works featured in the From Remote Stars exhibition.

Gillian Dykeman
The Moon, 2020
papier-mâché and projection with sound
Collection of the artist

In the 1960s, Earth Art emerged alongside conceptual and minimalist art in the United States. Existing primarily outside of the gallery system, earthworks by artists such as Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt paralleled the development of environmental movements and challenged the commoditization of life in America. dispatches from the feminist utopian future reimagines some of these earthworks as abandoned alien technology, reactivated by feminists in the future to bring about a feminist utopia. The narrative voice (spoken as the moon) is polyvocal and decentred through multiple genders and accents. The work asks how we might imagine and make our way to such a feminist future.

Image description: Papier-mâché moon sits on black background.

29/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Christina Battle is an artist, writer, and producer based in Amiskwacîwâskahikan / Edmonton, Alberta. Not only did she create this video installation for From Remote Stars, she also hosted our podcast. Be sure to listen to Christina Battle there if you haven’t yet, and check out her other work at the link in our bio.

Christina Battle
are we going to get blown off the planet (and what should we do about it), 2020
video installation (single-channel HD video with sound, fabric curtain)
Collection of the artist

Combining excerpts from Fuller’s 1968 talk in London with contemporary images of nature and technology, Christina Battle’s video installation renders his visit as an uncanny encounter with the hopes and fears of everyday life in the twenty-first century. Her rapid combinations of imagery parallel the big information patterns from the universe that were so important to Fuller’s thinking. They speak as much to big data and the underlying presence of a surveillance state as they do to remote stars. Past, present, and future are sutured together, a process captured in the quilted backdrop.

Image 1 description: Television on stand sits on quilted backdrop. Screen pictures two hands reaching toward flowers.

Image 2 description: Television on stand sits on quilted backdrop in an arched room with geodesic dome wallpaper.

26/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Still haven’t visited the exhibition? Be sure to check it out before closing day, May 15th.

The exhibition features bold colours, including the canary yellow featured here. Did you know that Greg Curnoe, the Canadian painter who recorded Fuller’s 1968 lecture in London, arrived at the talk wearing a suit of the same shade?

Image description: Wide corner shot of a yellow museum space with a black “From Remote Stars” sign on the left wall and various black and white images on the right wall. A wooden table with a glass case sits on the floor, holding ephemera.

23/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Be sure to register for the virtual screening of Kavanagh’s 2020 documentary Trinity3 on May 5th, followed by a conversation with artist Mary Kavanagh and scholar Sara Matthews. Registration link in bio.

Mary Kavanagh
Hands, to Hold, 2019
cast uranium glass (approx. 36 pieces), two flashlights
Collection of the artist
Installation view at Museum London, photographed by Toni Hafkenscheid

This work points to collective anxieties about the future, time and aging, and the uncertainty of the atomic age. The work is composed of uranium glass, which was used for the production of domestic objects from the nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Many of the casts are of yucca seed pods—the state flower of New Mexico—which the artist collected at the Trinity test site, place of the first atomic bomb test in 1945. Looking carefully amongst the objects you will find the forms of elements from beyond the desert environment, including songbirds, fungus, and two hands (which are cast from a mentor of the artist). The work is lit by UV lights so that you can explore the luminescence of the uranium, its glow hinting at the ubiquity and hazard of radiation.

Image description: A display case houses casts of two glowing green hands, as well as various small pieces, including yucca seed pods, songbirds, and fungus.

20/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

and .e.k.smith were featured on History Slam Podcast on April 7th, where they spoke with historian Sean Graham about the discovery of Curnoe’s recording of Fuller’s 1968 talk in London, as well as the process of curating the exhibition before and during the pandemic.

Find the episode at the link in bio.

Image description: Blue and gold graphic with text " [Fuller] always would bring it back to this singular perspective, which was his own perspective, which he then universalized." Kirsty Robertson

17/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

On May 5th, we are hosting a discussion between scholar Sara Matthews and artist Mary Kavanagh, following a screening of Kavanagh’s 2020 documentary Trinity3. Keep reading to learn more about Sara Matthews.

Sara Matthews is Associate Professor of Global Studies and Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research and teaching are interdisciplinary and consider the dynamics of conflict and social change. Working primarily in the field of research-creation, her projects explore the relations between visual culture and martial politics as well as how communities craft creative modes of relationality and survival in response to practices of state securitization. In addition to her scholarly work, Sara curates aesthetic projects that render encounters with conflict and loss as new forms of futurity, materiality and placemaking.

Image:
Mary Kavanagh
Trinity Equivalent (view of Trinity test site from North Oscura Peak, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico | Sumac, White Sands National Monument, New Mexico), 2019

Image description: Two images side by side. Left image has a birds-eye view of a green and brown flat landscape, and the right image is a pile of green moss on a white surface.

15/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

On May 5th, we are screening Mary Kavanagh’s 2020 documentary Trinity3, followed by a discussion with scholar Sara Matthews. Keep reading to learn more about Mary Kavanagh.

Mary Kavanagh is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Art at the University of Lethbridge, where she teaches interdisciplinary art studio. She was awarded a Tier I Board of Governors Research Chair (2020-2025) for her work examining nuclear culture, weaponized landscapes, and the material evidence of war and conflict. Kavanagh’s artwork is exhibited across Canada and internationally, and she has contributed to numerous publications including Through Post-Atomic Eyes (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2020), and Occupying Forces (Prefix Photo, 2015). She is Principal Investigator of a SSHRC Insight Grant for her project, Atomic Tourist: Trinity, that explores nuclear anxiety in the twenty-first century. With projects in Canada, Japan, and the United States, Kavanagh’s interest in the veiled history of nuclear armament resulted in her immersive, multivalent exhibition, Daughters of Uranium (2019-2020). A publication of the same name features essays by cultural anthropologist, Peter C. van Wyck, and art critic, Jayne Wilkinson. Kavanagh is currently documenting uranium extraction sites in Canada.

Images:
Mary Kavanagh
Installation view of Trinity3
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 2020
Two channel video installation
Image courtesy of the artist

Image descriptions: 1. A photograph of a video installation in the corner of two intersecting walls, picturing seagulls flying and sitting along a telephone wire in a blue sky. 2. A photograph of a video installation in the corner of two intersecting walls, picturing an explosion in black and white.

11/04/2022

💫 The From Remote Stars exhibition is currently open . 💫

Join us for a screening of Kavanagh’s 2020 documentary Trinity3, which addresses the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was tested in 1945. Following the screening there will be a discussion between the artist and scholar Sara Matthews, whose research addresses the dynamics of conflict and social change.

Presented in partnership between and , this event builds from Mary Kavanagh’s work on view now in the exhibition From Remote Stars: Buckminster Fuller, London, Speculative Futures (March 5-May 15, curated by Kirsty Robertson and Sarah E.K. Smith).

Stay tuned to learn more about Mary Kavanagh and Sara Matthews, or check out the links in our bio.

Register at the link in our bio.

Image description: Blue and gold graphic with text 'Screening & Discussion with Mary Kavanagh & Sara Matthews. Thursday May 5th, 12-1:30 pm, Via Zoom. Film reel clip art next to text.

From Remote Stars

21/05/2022

18/05/2022

14/05/2022

13/05/2022

13/05/2022

11/05/2022

10/05/2022

10/05/2022

07/05/2022

04/05/2022

02/05/2022

29/04/2022

26/04/2022

23/04/2022

20/04/2022

17/04/2022

15/04/2022

11/04/2022

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share