Peter Kingstone, Charles L. Roberts, the War Years, Video Still, (Original image from the Frogmen, 1951), 2006.

War Zones

Guillermina Buzio, Derek Hardinge, Peter Kingstone, Jorge Lozano, Afshin Matlabi

A Space Main Gallery

January 11 – February 15, 2008

Curated by: Sally Frater


The aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001 has led to increased surveillance, suspicion and fear of specific groups – war can no longer be regarded as something that occurs ”over there” and not ‘here’. Featuring the work of artists Guillermina Buzio, Jorge Lozano, Derek Hardinge, Peter Kingstone, and Afshin Matlabi, War Zones examines the ways in which war and its associated aggressions have seeped into the collective consciousness of those situated in the Western hemisphere.

Biographies

Guillermina Buzio is a film and video artist originally from Colombia. Currently based in Toronto, she has exhibited her work in Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Montreal. She holds a BFA from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidian Pueyredon (Argentina) and a Bachelor of Media Arts from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver.

Derek Hardinge is a Toronto-based artist who has studied sculpture and installation at the Ontario College of Art. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto and is currently studying photography at Ryerson University. He has shown his work in various venues throughout Toronto.

Peter is a longtime A Space member

Jorge Lozano has been working as a film and video artist for the last 20 years and has achieved national and international recognition. His fiction films have been exhibited at the Toronto Film Festival and at the Sundance Film Festival amongst others. His experimental work has been exhibited at many international festivals and galleries. Lozano has expanded his practice to the organization of many cultural and art events, the creation of aluCine, Toronto Latin Media Festival and facilitating self-representations video workshops for marginalized Latin and non- Latin youth in Canada since 1991 Colombia 2005-2009 and Venezuela 2005. Unquestionably new technologies for the production and exhibition of film and video are more accessible to artist, creating a visual explosion in the use of image and sound in the arts. The emergence of multiple screens and interactive works has changed the way we perceive film and how we perceive linear and non-linear narrative in film and video. In his work he sees the use of multiple screens as a device to speed up the narrative flow to conceptually give sequences momentary independence while serving the practical needs of the whole film. This enactive approach of using dynamic fragmentation impiies the mental ability to grasp something as an invariant under a diversity of aspects and perspectives. His latest works have been using multiple screens in order to achieve larger-scale patterns of meaning to create works that interconnect the brain, the body and the environment (art works) at multiple phenomelogical levels.

Afshin Matlabi has shown his work throughout Canada at the Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Optica (Montreal) and the AMS Gallery in Vancouver. He holds a BSc in Engineering from Ryerson University, a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA from Concordia University in Montreal. The artist currently lives and works in Montreal.

Sally Frater is an independent curator, artist and writer. She holds a BA in Studio Arts from the University of Guelph. She is currently completing a MA in Contemporary Art from the University of Manchester/Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, England.