chew the bones, they’re soft

Artist:
Whess Harman

Dates:
February 5 - April 30, 2022

chew the bones, they’re soft is an exhibition that began as an amorphous project looking at the parallels between potlatching and exhibition making. Both can take years to organize and take particular attention in the movement of time and resources. The potlatch is a form of governance that at its core holds the ethos that no one, no clan, should go without. There is an element of flexing when it comes to planning a potlatch; demonstrating your wealth and foresight through determining how much of it you can give away. It’s important to bear in mind too that this practice relies on a cycle of giving and receiving; redistributing resources as needed while also giving an opportunity for clans to gather and joyously hold the culture together. Potlatching is a part of a cultural ecosystem.

For Whess Harman, this exhibition is about their cultural ecosystem; a network of artists and friendships and care that has been integral to survival. As one would do in organizing a Potlatch, redistributing wealth through commissioning work for others in the form of writing, art and music to be given away to visitors through the course of the exhibition programming to point towards the fallacy of the formulation of a solo exhibition being entirely attributed to any singular artist.

The works in the exhibition speak towards the cycles of yearning, patience and fixation experienced in the past several years. Inspiration for these works come from several places for Harman; in part in their nostalgia for the 1993 animated film, Sailor Moon R: The Promise of the Rose where the alien, Fiore, who cannot survive Earth is forced to leave and does so with the child’s promise to return with the most beautiful flowers in the galaxy for Tuxedo Kamen. They have also dwelled on the troubling turn of the once optimistic notion of space travel, now soured and co-opted by corporate greed. Instead of the despairing humour that followed of wishes to leave a planet in crises, what would it mean to stay? What responsibilities would we have to those who leave, but return? Would they remember that they can chew through the soft vertebrae of jarred salmon? Will they recognize the roots of cultures that continued to evolve in their absence? Will they know that we never lost hope in waiting?

Curated by Eli Hirtle.

Being Gooz!

Being Gooz! a 144-page publication documents Whess Harman’s artistic practice over the years and includes essays by Stacey Koosel, Peter Morin and Harman. Full of Harman’s visually striking and thought-provoking artworks, the book is designed by Vancouver based graphic designer Victoria Lum.

Edited by Dr. Stacey Koosel and published by UBC Okanagan Gallery.

Available for purchase through the Open Space Online Store.