Two new exhibitions at RENDER open January 8

[Barbara Hobot]

*RENDER @ University of Waterloo*

*Susan Detwiler: dogswalkme*

*Crystal Mowry: Twilight of an Empire*

*January 8th through February 14th, 2009*

*Opening reception: January 8th from 5 - 8 pm*

East Campus Hall



*RENDER* is pleased to present two new solo projects by Susan Detwiler and
Crystal Mowry. Detwiler's *dogswalkme* and Mowry's *Twilight of an
Empire *continue
*RENDER*'s strategy of commissioning artists to develop new works through an
informal residency program, to critically engage with the history of gallery
and museum practice, and to respond to social, cultural and environmental
dynamics in the Waterloo Region. These new projects are the result of an
ongoing dialogue that will continue with Detwiler developing a second site
intervention for the University of Waterloo campus in the fall of 2009 and
Mowry producing a new work for the atrium of the UW School of Architecture.


Susan Detwiler lives in a rural area on the edge of a maple forest.  Her art
practice is based on her interactions and observations in the surrounding
natural environment. For years she has maintained a daily walking practice
which takes her through feral field, swamp and woodlot.  With *dogswalkme*,
Detwiler continues to explore the terrain at the fringes of development: the
farm fields, fallow land and abandoned industrial sites often ignored or
left idle within the intense suburban sprawl and urban infill of the
region.  Detwiler's valuing of these places as sites of potent personal
engagement runs in stark contrast to the dominant definition of land use
"value" in the area. Working with simple head-cam technology (carried by
herself and her dogs) Detwiler's multi-perspective video records the complex
interactions between artist, dogs and the landscape they traverse. The
placement of the head-cams frames part of their faces making them appear
like peculiar creatures in a strange terrain. There's a magical,
otherworldly quality as they maneuver through forest, field and quarry with
no clear sense of purpose or destination. Detwiler offers a psychogeographic
exploration that challenges current land use practice and positions the pace
of the body, the cadence of unaided human movement through the landscape, as
the critical platform for understanding the immediate environment.


Crystal Mowry's *Twilight of an Empire* is inspired by a number of
historical accounts of Ota Benga (later known as Otto Bingo), a Congolese
Pygmy brought to the United States at the turn of the 20th century with the
purpose of being in an Anthropological display at the 1904 St. Louis World's
Fair.  But it was the month of September in 1906 when he lived among the
chimps and orangutans in the Bronx Zoo that will always be the most curious
part of his story.  For that brief month he attracted thousands of visitors
to the zoo and incited hot debates about race in America.


*Twilight of an Empire* is an open-back diorama comprised of essentially two
versions of the same scene, separated by conflicting sight lines. There is
the diorama/object version and the live video signal visible on a monitor.
Neither the diorama, nor the video stream, aim to provide a factual account
of the story. Rather, Mowry hopes to situate viewers somewhere between the
lived event and a document.


*Twilight of an Empire* is a bit like a set for a film of overlapping
moments in history that implicate ideas of savagery and civilization.  As
with her earlier works, Mowry is interested in the discrepancies between
different accounts of historical events, and the room that can be created
for uncertainty depending on how the event is framed. Within *Twilight of an
Empire* is an unlikely mash-up of architectural structures: a larger
Victorian Glass House (inspired in part by a 1905 image of the Atrium at the
Bronx Zoo) houses a modernist "monkey house" which borrows characteristics
from the architecture of Le Corbusier and a Robinson Crusoe inspired
treehouse.


Contact:

Andrew Hunter, RENDER Director/Curator

renderprojects at gmail.com

or

Barbara Hobot, RENDER Curator in Residence

renderevents at gmail.com

www.render.uwaterloo.ca

519-888-4567 x33575
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