cSPACE Eau Claire

This is Not My Culture - Public Exhibition
2023-09-28 17:00 - 21:00 UTC | cSPACE Eau Claire Neighbourhood Hub, 381 2 Avenue Southwest, Calgary, AB, T2P 0C5, Canada
Artist Xstine Cook invites you to view the results of her month-long residency and contemplate the creative potential of plastic.
Reception at 7 pm on September 28
The packaging materials for this residency were generated by Cook’s family’s normal consumption over the course of a year, and were prepared on site in the Hub, where the art was imagined, designed, and created.
By touching, manipulating, and re-purposing plastic that was intended for a single use before being thrown to Earth to process over unknown millennia, “This is Not My Culture” invites you to view this miraculous material not as waste, but as an extraordinary resource. This is Not My Culture contemplates the globe’s frantic pace of plastic generation that is at the crux of the fraught relationship between humans’ minds and hearts; our addiction to convenience, vs the interconnectedness of all life.

ABOUT XSTINE COOK
A cultural activist who uses the power of storytelling to bring unconventional stories and art forms to light, Xstine Cook operates on the core belief that all humans are art makers, and acts of radical creativity are necessary to evolve our understanding of ourselves, each other and our world.
Xstine is a visitor to the Treaty 7 area, who was raised in Calgary and in the foothills of Alberta along Dog Pound Creek. Cook is a mask maker and multi-disciplinarian. She trained at Dell’Arte theatre school in Humboldt County California, and with various masters in Indonesia, Italy, France, and the West Coast of Canada.
Xstine co-founded Green Fools Theatre where she wrote, directed, and designed many of the company’s boundary-stretching original works until she left in 2003 to start the Festival of Animated Objects, and CAOS, an interdisciplinary arts company.
Xstine is the recipient of the 2022 City of Calgary Award for Community Achievement in the Arts, the Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, the Rozsa Foundation’s Innovation Award, and countless awards for her filmmaking.
Cook recently co-wrote and produced MONSTR, an animated short by Tank Standing Buffalo for HBO Max Warner Brothers Discovery Access Animated Shorts Program.

Dark Recess Open House with Karolina Gajewska
2023-10-06 16:30 - 21:30
Experience a fully immersive art installation designed to stimulate and evoke emotional responses common to horror themes. An element of this will include a large format horror inspired silk screened installation by printmaker Karolina Gajewska.
Dark Recess is a multi-faceted arts installation, dialog incubator and arts residency that unveils the emotions of loss, grief, pain, fear, darkness and trauma and how they are expressed culturally through art and various film horror genres. Inspired by the month of October and the resurrection of things arguably left better to dead, we’ll peel back the layers of which we express Dark Recess.

Dark Recess Poster Show curated by Karolina Gajewska
2023-10-07 18:30 - 21:00
This event summons original silk-screened designs in partnership with Burnt Toast Studio to present a show exposing the dark drama / horror genre. Experience the work of printmakers and local designers in poster art focusing on the horror genera movie re-imagined. A Q&A with artists will be taking place.
Dark Recess is a multi-faceted arts installation, dialog incubator and arts residency that unveils the emotions of loss, grief, pain, fear, darkness and trauma and how they are expressed culturally through art and various film horror genres. Inspired by the month of October and the resurrection of things arguably left better to dead, we’ll peel back the layers from which we express Dark Recess.

Trivial Thursdays @ Dark Recess with Karolina Gajewska
2023-10-12 18:30 - 20:30
Join us to test your horror film and dark arts knowledge! From Harry Potter to The Exorcist we will are going to see if your horror trivia lives up to the hype!
Dark Recess is a multi-faceted arts installation, dialog incubator and arts residency that unveils the emotions of loss, grief, pain, fear, darkness and trauma and how they are expressed culturally through art and various film horror genres. Inspired by the month of October and the resurrection of things arguably left better to dead, we’ll peal back the layers of which we express Dark Recess.

Pumpkin Competition @ Dark Recesses with Karolina Gajewska
2023-10-14 15:00 - 17:00
A good ol’ pumpkin carving competition in celebration of all things Halloween! Prizes!
Dark Recess is a multi-faceted arts installation, dialog incubator and arts residency that unveils the emotions of loss, grief, pain, fear, darkness and trauma and how they are expressed culturally through art and various film horror genres. Inspired by the month of October and the resurrection of things arguably left better to dead, we’ll peal back the layers of which we express Dark Recess.
It is important to come together and discuss and express the dark recesses of our own minds and experiences and relate to one another to begin to heal and face those fears and traumas to begin to heal. Honoring and facing our darkness allows us also to honor and face the light.

BYOB: Bring Your Own Boo's
2023-10-31 16:00 - 18:00
Freedom Through Theatre’s Opening Halloween Meet and Greet. Bring your own character and come ready to play.
Free
