Installation view of Project Spaces by u, off-site at at Centre Village Mall. All works courtesy of the artist. Photo by Blaine Campbell.

u | PROJECT SPACES
09 JULY 2022 - 2023
OFF-SITE AT CENTRE VILLAGE MALL

In its most essentialized form, “u” is an element of language; it pre-exists us and accrues meaning through interaction. u is part artist, part arena—a transferable personal alias, and a social space for collaboration. u’s exhibition will take place in three parts, the first two will happen this summer through the Southern Alberta Art Gallery at Centre Village Mall, and the third will conclude with a publication in 2023.

Project spaces are miniature galleries that provide a literal and hypothetical space for u and various collaborators (a wide ranging network of artists, writers, and curators) to analyze the questions, intentions, and interpretations at the core of art and exhibition-making.

After a collaborator receives one, the making of a project space develops through conversation. It begins with the most obvious question: What should go into the project space? Almost immediately a million other questions come to the fore: “How do we get something into the project-space? How much can the project-space hold? If this is just a frame, does the frame have to be this size? Do we even need a frame? If we didn’t have a frame, where would the work be located? Come to think of it, even if we keep this frame, where will the work be located? Who will see this work? And so it goes… Talking back and forth, project-space conversations develop organically and vary widely in their outcomes. 

By gathering, highlighting and elevating the often unseen elements of an exhibition, u encounters and reflects its own prompt and provocation of the empty project space; what should go inside? Where will the work be located? Who is it for and what conversation do we want to have with them?

u is the letter “u” in the word “current” on the website of a now defunct Los Angeles based project space called 67 Steps. In 2019, u opened a project in Calgary called u’s (uuus.info) which operated until 2020. Since this point, u has been organizing exhibitions in various offsite locations in rural Alberta while a permanent u’s location is being constructed in Black Diamond. Recent collaborative exhibitions include: u and Alan Belcher w/ Alan Belcher, The Lily, Calgary; The Lucinda River w/ Naoki Sutter-Shudo, Carl Louie, London; u, Utopian Visions Art Fair, Portland; Showrunners, Los Angeles.

This exhibition was made possible with funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the City of Lethbridge.

Thank you to our exhibition sponsor Centre Village Mall for their generous contribution to this exhibition.