Critical Writing Index

They Made A Day Be A Day Here

by Shawna Dempsey, Lori Millan and Anthea Black

Grande Prairie: Art Gallery of Grand Prairie, 2013

ISBN/ISSN 978-0-9877278-3-1

Catalogue accompanying the travelling exhibition "They Made A Day Be A Day Here", co-produced by the Art Gallery of Grand Prairie, Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon and School of Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Catalogue includes Director's Foreword, a curatorial statement by Amy Fung, three essays, artist sketches by Amy Fung, contributor biographies and photographs throughout. The exhibition "fuses personal histories with cultural prairie lineages, and the day-to-day messiness of the art scene with the comparative isolation of prairie geography." [Source: Cooley, A. (2014, January 16). They Made A Day Be A Day Here: Prairie Positive. Retrieved from https://canadianart.ca/reviews/made-day-day-prairie-positive/] and "considers the shifting identities of contemporary artists on the Prairies... This exhibition includes a dozen artists who address issues of time, labour and place, exploring histories and methodologies that range from craft to modernism."

Amy Fung, who met hundreds of artists between 2007 and 2011, says the show is a reflection on invisibility in artistic labour. “Conversations can reverberate as resonances of a specific time and place, conjuring a shade of purpose and identity,” she says. “We were all isolated geographically and perhaps politically, but we each held a space, and together we made a place.”

ITEM 2013.169 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

AtkinsAmalie

BenningHeather

BowesJennifer

CampbellTammi

DraneyBrenda

LupypciwWenesday

JohnsonSarah Anne

MadackyMaria

McTroweMary-Anne

MehraDivya

StillwellJennifer

SteiflerLeesa