LORNE POWER
#rainthatstuck
13 MAY 2023 - 24 JUNE 2023
#rainthatstuck is an ongoing, participatory project asking anyone who is interested to reveal a story from a time when they were caught in the rain. Participants who wish to contribute to the project are mailed a postcard featuring a photograph of a panel van with a mysterious red liquid scattered across it and emblazoned with the hashtag, “#rainthatstuck.” Submitted stories about being caught in the rain are written as a caption on an Instagram post along with a photograph of the participant with their postcard. The library gallery space features some of the mailed postcards along with a diptych of the van photograph and a cut-up poem created by Lorne Power of previously submitted stories.
In the vein of mail art, #rainthatstuck is premised on aesthetic expression as an accessible and personal experience outside of traditional spaces. Shared stories of the rain chart the chain reactions possible through social circles. The continuity of the project relies on factors outside of the initiator’s control: chance, digital shares, likes, word of mouth, and the goodwill and vulnerability of its participants. The project is also an equalizing one. Everyone has a story about getting caught in the rain and anyone can share that story. In spite of the unauthenticity of social media, sharing can be radical and #rainthatstuck enables a more genuine creative network.
If you would like to participate in #rainthatstuck and share your own story of getting caught in the rain, send an Instagram message to Lorne Power (@portlower) indicating your interest in participating. Power will mail you your own postcard with instructions on how to post and tag your own story.
Curated by Adam Whitford, Interim Curator
Lorne Power wanders around photographing ostensibly insignificant stuff. His practice is grounded in a documentary style that mixes ironic humour, aspects of psychogeography, rhopography, photo-text, and conceptual strategies to explore the mysterious relationships between everyday physical and social space. Before Lorne made images, he wrote poetry while working as a baggage handler for the bus industry. He studied creative writing at Humber College, photography at The New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, and is an MFA candidate at the University of Lethbridge. Lorne is married to dance artist, Sarah Power (she/her). They perform together regularly combining movement, photography, and video installation. Lorne has had two solo exhibitions and been included in several group shows. He is a fifth-generation settler of French and Scottish ancestry living in Menaquesk/Saint John on the traditional territories of the Wolastoqiyik, in New Brunswick.
SAAG Library Gallery: The Gallery presents exhibitions as in-situ interventions within our Library. The Library Gallery features a diverse selection of artworks and mediums from regional contemporary artists. Artists are invited to think of the library as a unique exhibition context by investigating the Gallery’s programming around readership, publications, and its place within Lethbridge’s historic Carnegie library which opened in 1922. Artists are encouraged to consider the physical architecture of the library and its material holdings, responding to a broader and generative idea of what a library might be, as they change and adapt to new forms of knowledge production.
This exhibition was made possible with funding assistance from the City of Lethbridge, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.