Artist Talk: Christina Battle
March 8, 2024
11:00 am - 12:00 pm CT on Zoom
EVENT RECORDING WITH ASL INTERPRETATION
In conjunction with Christina Battle's exhibition FORECAST, Gallery 1C03 is pleased to host a talk by the artist. Christina Battle will provide an overview of her recent multimedia work which makes evident the intersections between environmental, social, political and economic issues facing us today. This event will be moderated by Dr. Riva Symko, who is currently teaching the University of Winnipeg History course "Art, Nature, Climate".
Following the talk, there will be an opportunity for questions from the audience.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Christina Battle is an artist based in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton), within the Aspen Parkland: the transition zone where prairie and forest meet. Her practice focuses on thinking deeply about the concept of disaster: its complexity, and the intricacies that are entwined within it. She looks to disaster as a series of intersecting processes including social, environmental, cultural, political, and economic … which are implicated not only in how disaster is caused but also in how it manifests, is responded to, and overcome. Through this research, Battle looks closer to both online models and plant systems for strategies to learn from, and for ways we might help to frame and strengthen such response. Much of this work extends from her recent PhD dissertation (2020) which looked closer to community responses to disaster: the ways in which they take shape, and especially to how artistic and online models might help to frame and strengthen such response.
Battle’s practice prioritizes collaboration, experimentation, and failure; she has a B.Sc. with specialization in Environmental Biology from the University of Alberta, a certificate in Film Studies from Ryerson University, an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a PhD in Art & Visual Culture from the University of Western Ontario. She collaborates with Serena Lee as SHATTERED MOON ALLIANCE and has exhibited internationally in festivals and galleries as both artist and curator, most recently at: Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Alberta University of the Arts (Calgary); Gallery 44 (Toronto); The Blackwood Gallery (Mississagua); Window Winnipeg; The Grantham Foundation (Quebec); The Art Gallery of Burlington (Ontario); and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Ontario).
Dr. Riva Symko (she/her) is a white settler from Treaty 6 Territory in Alberta. Currently, Riva is Head of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Canadian Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq. She has lived and worked across the continent – from Newfoundland to Alaska, holding posts with institutions such as the Kimura Gallery, University of Alberta Museums, [x]curated curatorial collective, Nuit Blanche Edmonton, and Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre. Riva's current areas of critical and curatorial concern include gender equity, climate change, and anti-racist pedagogy and methodology.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gallery 1C03 is on Treaty 1 Territory, the homeland of the Red River Métis and the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg, Ininew, Anishininew, Dakota and Dene peoples. Our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.