Every two years Luminocity presents a selection of artworks that respond to the current state of the world through diverse artistic perspectives. With each iteration, the global context seems to be increasingly in flux with systems of power entrenching and the environmental emergency becoming ever harder to ignore. Viewed outdoors, at night, during the shortest days of the year, Luminocity lets in the light, offering insight into the world around us through artworks that open up networks of cultural exchange and transport us to other realms.

This year, the curatorial framework centres on the notion of transformation in all its complexities and possibilities. To transform evokes metamorphosis—the wonder of a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon and then shapeshifting into a butterfly—this natural phenomenon is a reminder of how change can be thrilling and remarkable.

While the uncertainty that comes with change can be uncomfortable and scary, change is constant and inevitable. It can be a shift in mindset, passing through from one understanding of reality to another. It can manifest as systems and phenomena in flux. It can be a dramatic departure and appear as a catastrophic fracture or cessation. It can also look like renewal and resilience.

The selection of artworks shared in this year’s Luminocity allude to transformation in different ways. An interactive project by Casey Koyczan highlights the fluid relationship between the physical and digital by capturing the ghostly presence of viewer’s movements on a screen. Koyczan’s new series Tadǫetła ; Walk In A Circle re-imagines Indigenous material culture through figures that appear like spirits or creatures, embodying human characteristics within a 3D environment.

In her performance-based video, Tanya Lukin Linklater attunes to embodied observations of the land. Lukin Linklater, in collaboration with Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Ceinwen Gobert, and Neven Lochhead, probe the notion of the vessel, offering a bodily response to various geographical locations, instructions, and texts. Using a mirroring effect, gabi dao considers the intersections between humans and the natural world through an examination of bats who serve as a metaphor for alienation and belonging and affirm the underlying narrative, “I am becoming you, and you’re becoming me.”

In their collaborative project, Radiant Temperature of Openings,Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, and Ryan Ferko reframe archival footage of the Ontario government’s sanctioned burning of homes along the Saint Lawrence River in the 1950s to make way for a new hydroelectric dam. The video, St. Lawrence Burns, recalls a beautiful, yet chilling, moment of destruction driven by the rationale of transformation in the name of modernization, with the force of fire evoking the all too familiar threat of wildfires in the Interior of BC. In Khan Lee’s Hearts and Arrows, the transformation of an ice block into a sparkling diamond offers rumination on value and impermanence.

Sound drives many of the projects. Charles Stankievech’s panoramic contemplation of the microcosm and macrocosm takes us on a journey from the outer reaches of the atmosphere deep into the Earth, exposing passages of creation and destruction, expansion and contraction, intrusion, and extrusion. Similarly, Andrew Yong Hoon Lee’s collaged footage reflects on the musical relationship between activator and resonator, incorporating rendered footage of two black holes colliding with the oral transmission of a 3000-year-old Korean shaman song.

Leila Zelli breaks through the entrenchment of borders and national identities by way of found footage of Iranian women and girls asserting their rights through the adoption of a traditional male Iranian sport. Her animated story, About Dam and Hofit, made in collaboration with Gali Blay, shares an endearing relationship of discovery between a plane and a mountain. Artists Chun Hua Catherine Dong and Claudia Larcher provide dynamic explorations of natural and imagined worlds through the use of Artificial Intelligence software. Dong examines gender and the plasticity and plurality of the body through a re-imagined Chinese folktale that plays out in a virtual marine world, while Larcher’s exploration of a tree from crown to root asks what makes a tree a tree.

A centerpiece of this year’s Luminocity, Carol Sawyer’s ambitious new three channel video and sound project, Grimm Futures, draws on 20th century illustrations of European fairy tales and 15th century Netherlandish paintings to share a poetic response to recent and current events—pandemic isolation, war, climate change anxiety, increasing political polarization, and the emergence of AI and algorithms—transforming beautiful imagery into a foreboding prediction of the future. 

Each project offers moments of enchantment and an opportunity to bear witness to an artist’s view of our rapidly changing world. With artworks that range from narrative storytelling to experimental film and interactive experience, Luminocity shares the magic of the moving image and acts as a portal to urban transformation. It is an invitation to extraordinary encounters with art throughout downtown Kamloops for all ages.

Luminocity is curated by Charo Neville and made possible with the generous support of the Audain Foundation, Jane Irwin and Ross Hill, the City of Kamloops, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council, GK Sound, and Kamloops Art Gallery donors.  

Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko
gabi dao
Chun Hua Catherine Dong
Casey Koyczan
Claudia Larcher
Andrew Yong Hoon Lee
Khan Lee
Tanya Lukin Linklater (with Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Ceinwen Gobert, and Neven Lochhead)
Carol Sawyer
Charles Stankievech
Leila Zelli (with Gali Blay)

The Kamloops Art Gallery, established in 1978, is situated on the unceded and unsurrendered lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwepemcúl’ecw, the traditional territory of the Secwépemc people.

The largest art gallery in Secwepemcúl̓ecw (the Interior of British Columbia), the Gallery offers national caliber art experiences through a diverse range of accessible and affordable exhibitions, talks, tours, and studio-based programming for all ages and abilities, and boasts a collection of over 3,100 works of art. 

Charo Neville, Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery 
250.377.2410
cneville@kag.bc.ca

Click here or scroll down to view and download key images for each exhibiting artist. Please ensure you use the appropriate image credits in your publication.