Projects > Far Away So Close Part II

Far Away So Close is a series of exhibitions, publications, and events that explores the idea of distance, considers the bridging of distance as an ultimately quixotic gesture, and investigates the particular relationship of this gesture to art making. Presented over the course of 2014–15 at Access, each installment features emergent artists who draw upon a variety of modes, materials, and methodologies, and whose practices are scattered across the globe.

Part II is focused on the political utterance or gesture. Here, in a nod to the long history of this consideration by the avant-garde, Paris-based Kathleen Ritter and Ottawa-based Guillermo Trejo explore moments of revolutionary utterance and action: the call to arms and what Slavoj Žižek has called “the day after tomorrow.” They consider the roles of opacity, subterfuge and repetition, and ways in which the creative act itself may above all be akin to the desire for political upheaval and change: foolishly impractical, resigned to the probability of failure and yet driven by an in suppressible hope.

Thanks to the Canada Council For The Arts, Ontario Art Council, and Ottawa Art Council for your support