Ranters, Ravers & Raconteurs: Y-Level 2010

28 May – 19 Jun 2010
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Storytelling is at the heart of Ranters, Ravers & Raconteurs, this year’s Y-Level emerging artists show. Kitchen-table rants, mad soapbox ravings and oral histories have provided education and entertainment for generations.  24-hour news stations are proof that we are story addicts. It is uncertain whether technology is killing storytelling or just helping it morph into new forms. But what is certain is that storytelling is an essential way of passing on information, of learning and of relating to one another. These six artists employ storytelling with humourous, compelling and poetic resulting work.

Y-Level is an annual group show at Eyelevel Gallery showcasing emerging artists. Each year, artists graduating or recently graduated from undergrad programs in the Atlantic region submit to the show organized by an emerging curator.  The Raconteurs is curated by Keltie MacNeill.

The raconteurs are:

Clare Halpine documents  with dry wit a long month spent in Inuvik, Northwest Territory as a Home Hardware employee.

Jessica Hein shunned all modern communication technology for the month of March and wrote her father a postcard each day. He responded in kind.

 Neil Lapierre's lithographs approach mass culture stories close to his heart, like Tony Little’s accident and beneficial global warming, with sardonic humour.

Noah Derek Logan inhabits a confessional booth in the gallery inviting viewers to play priest to his daily readings taken from confessional websites like Twitter and Facebook. 

Aaron Weldon MacLean uses his late father’s entire photo archive to create a stroboscopic video to represent one life in a rapid series of images.

Susan Wolf's grandfather fled Nazi Germany and kept a book in his bedside table where he wrote vernacular sayings for years, which she then reinterprets in an audio installation.