October 28, 2008 Fringe Arts

A desire close to home

Montreal-based artists experimentally express “the ‘other’ within”

by Leila Amiri

Con U is finally developing a campus between university-stamped buildings and the mild amusements of downtown Montreal.

In a school where diversity is a main theme, Concordia was long overdue for a place, like the new Place Norman-Bethune, where the majority of our student body can be seen, not only to those driving by, but by one another.

With the familiar statue back in place, along with its habitual flock of pigeons, the FOFA gallery retires it’s Bethune exhibit and moves on to Rearranging Desires: Finding the ‘Other’ Within. The exhibition, curated by guest Alice Ming Wai Jim, features four Montreal-based artists: Ayesha Hameed, Karen Tam, Chih-Chien Wang, and Mary Sui Yee Wong.

The exhibition touches on aspects that most can relate to; the desire to be among a canon while still holding on to your heritage. A symbiosis of what’s being left behind and what lies ahead.

The four artists vary in method, each creating pieces with different mediums and fashions, using their experiences, and education as a platform to communicate and translate their stories to the viewer.

Upon entering the vernissage at the gallery, a sense of flurry and pride was felt among those curious to see a building of Jello here, a turquoise wall with golden cut-outs there, the fashions of an ethnicity cut-out and posed upon an enlarged photograph of a little girl near the window.

These were some of the marvelous things, each with a story, an idea, and a past being presented to what is now their present.

The exhibition will be in the FOFA until Oct. 31.