LECTURE:
KATHLEEN RITTER
Saturday, August 13 7:30PM in the KIAC Ballroom
The Sound of North
As a starting point for a first trip north, Ritter will use the words of Glenn Gould
(spoken 50 years ago) and imagine what they would sound like if spoken today: “I’ve
long been intrigued by that incredible tapestry of tundra and taiga which constitutes
the Arctic and sub-Arctic of our country. I’ve read about it, written about it, and even
pulled up my parka once and gone there. Yet like all but a very few Canadians I’ve
had no real experience of the North. I’ve remained, of necessity, an outsider. And the
North has remained for me, a convenient place to dream about, spin tall tales about,
and, in the end, avoid.” — Glenn Gould, Introduction to The Idea of North, 1967
KATHLEEN RITTER
Ritter is an artist and a curator. She was an artist in residence at La Cité
Internationale des Arts, Paris, as a recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts
International Residencies Program in Visual Arts, in 2013. Working with sound,
photography, video, and text, often in collaboration, Ritter has exhibited her work
across Canada. She was recently commissioned, along with composer James B.
Maxwell, to develop a soundtrack for the international conference Institutions By
Artists based on the minutes from the organizers’ board meetings.
Ritter was the Associate Curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery until 2012, where she
curated the exhibitions How Soon Is Now; Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal
Culture (with Tania Willard); WE: Vancouver (with Bruce Grenville); Rebecca Belmore:
Rising to the Occasion (with Daina Augaitis); and commissioned public artworks
for Offsite by Damian Moppett, Kota Ezawa, Elspeth Pratt, and Heather and Ivan
Morison.
POST-EXHIBITION TEXT
Fall 2016
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