Orphan Well Woes
Alana Bartol
Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery
August 31 - November 23, 2024

Since the Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA) began its work in 2017, the number of orphan oil well sites in Alberta has steadily increased. An orphan well is an oil or gas well site investigated and confirmed as not having any legally responsible or financially able party to deal with its abandonment and reclamation responsibilities. These sites threaten to contaminate land, water, air, and life. In Alberta alone, the cost of remediating these wells has been estimated to be as high as $88 billion.[1]

Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA) employs unconventional approaches to environmental remediation that examine care, empathy, and the reliability of information. As part of this work, OWAA is dedicated to finding symbolic caretakers for orphan wells across what is colonially named and defined as Alberta. The exhibition includes photography, drawings, letter correspondence between caretakers and wells, objects, installation, video, and participatory art.

Thank you to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for a grant supporting this exhibition.

Learn more at: orphanwelladoptionagency.com
reddeermuseum.com

Image: Alana Bartol, Installation view, Orphan Well Woes, 2024, Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery.

[1] Weber, Bob. “Critics call for review after study suggests Alberta Energy Regulator underestimated oil well liability.” CBC News,19 Jan 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-oil-well-liability-energy-regulator-1.7088683.

River on Fire
Diverseworks
September 28, 2024 - November 16, 2024
Curated by Ashely DeHoyos Saunder

3400 Main Street, Houston TX, USA
Opening reception: Friday, September 27, 5-8 pm

Curated by Ashley DeHoyos Sauder, River on Fire draws inspiration from a long history of environmental activism related to river fires across the nation— events that have significantly shaped understandings of ecological preservation and environmental advocacy.

The featured artists: Carolina Aranibar-Fernández (San Francisco, CA), Brandon Ballengée (New Orleans, LA), Alana Bartol (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), Christina Battle (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), Hannah Chalew (New Orleans, LA), Lili Chin (New York, NY), Willow Naomi Curry (Houston, TX), Morel Doucet (Miami, FL), Heather L. Johnson (Houston, TX), Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud (Houston, TX), Laura Napier (Ann Arbor, MI), Joe Robles IV (Pasadena, TX), Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez-Delgado (Roswell, NM/Puerto Rico), and Zuyva Sevilla (Albuquerque, NM) bring attention to pressing ecological issues. Through artistic research and lived experience, they highlight the unique environmental challenges facing local, regional, and national landscapes.

For more details about the exhibition, visit: diverseworks.org

With a finger to her lips... is one of three short films in the AMAAS Media Arts Tour's curated shorts program selected by Sharon Kahanoff, the Artistic Director of EMMEDIA.

AMAAS Media Arts Tour 2024
Calgary Edition
Alberta Media Arts Alliance Society (AMAAS)
Saturday October 5th, 2024

WITH A FINGER TO HER LIPS
Alana Bartol

VARIETALS
Emmanuel Ho

WAYSTATION
Sandra Vida

See the schedule and get your tickets for the tour at showpass.com/amaastour2024

Image: Alana Bartol, With a finger to her lips...(still), 2021, FHD, 10:31

In Our Nature
Esplande Arts and Heritage Centre
Curated by Xanthe Isbister

April 23 - August 31, 2024
esplanade.ca

Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski
Heather Shillinglaw
Jay Mosher
Tyler B. Jordan
Rocio Graham
Julya Hajnoczky

In Our Nature features the work of seven Canadian artists whose bonds with the natural world inform and inspire their creative processes. Each artist’s relationship with nature influences their conceptual foundations and processes and then visually manifests itself through various approaches. This group exhibition showcases a diverse collection of works that includes video projections, elaborate garments, large-scale photographs, a forest installation, and an immersive ultraviolet video.

Lines of Descent Screenings
Saturday, August 3rd, 2024 at 6 - 8PM
With a finger to her lips by Alana Bartol
Anyox by Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora

Saturday, August 10th, 2024 at 6 - 8PM
Extractions by Theo Jean Cuthand
black sea files by Ursula Biemann

EMMEDIA Main Space
Curated by Sharon Kahanoff

Accompanying Matilda Aslizadeh's Moly and Kassandra, we are hosting a series of double feature screenings.

emmedia.ca

My video reading wild lands (2018) is included in the exhibition:

AGA100: Act 2 Landscape to Land Use
Art Gallery of Alberta
June 15, 2024 – January 19, 2025
Organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta
Curated by Catherine Crowston, Lindsey Sharman and Danielle Siemens

Hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 11am - 5pm, Thursdays 11am - 7pm
Free admission 4-7pm on the last Thursday of every month
youraga.ca

AGA100: Act 2 Landscape to Land Use shows a diverse range of interactions with the natural world, and shows how Albertans live on, with, and take from the land over time. The works range from cityscapes to landscapes and represent rural life, farming and extractive industries and mining. Act II shows multiple views of Alberta from untouched and pristine to responsibly managed to irrevocably scarred and damaged.

Photograph: Charles Cousins, courtesy of the Art Gallery of Alberta

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature
Alana Bartol
Campbell River Art Gallery
Curated by Jenelle Pasiechnik

March 23 to July 13, 2024
craartgallery.ca
Opening reception and artist tour March 23 from 3-5pm

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature is a multi-part project by artist Alana Bartol that engages the past, present, and possible future of coal mining in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, and North Vancouver Island. The site-responsive artworks include drawing, video, sculpture, participatory art, and installation.

Image: Alana Bartol, With a finger to her lips...(still), 2021. FHD. 10:32.

Cauldron International Film and Video Festival
Salt Lake City, UT
May 23-26, 2024

CAULDRON is a swirling brew of styles and forms selected worldwide. It aims to become a premier destination for radical cinema. All screenings are free and open to the public and take place at the Salt Lake City Downtown Public Library.

Catch my short film With a finger to her lips... on May 25th.

cauldronfilmfestival.com

Canadian Forces Artist Program - Group 9
Canadian War Museum
November 2, 2023 - March 17, 2024

Canadian War Museum
1 Vimy Place
Ottawa ON K1A 0M8
warmuseum.ca

Group 9 is an exhibition of contemporary military art hosted by the Canadian War Museum. This is the ninth group from The Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP) and is showcasing four artists : Jean-Pierre Aubé, Alana Bartol, Olivia Rozema, and Jessica Lynn Wiebe. A catalogue is available for purchase. Read more: Five Shows in Canada in Galleries West.

Image:
Alana Bartol, Targets II (Is This For You?), 2019
Archival digital print, Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 gsm, edition of 5. Courtesy VIVIANEART © Copyright Visual Arts (COVA).

all roses sleep (inviolate light)
Regional Program, Media City Film Festival
Curated By Brandon Walley
Nov 10, 2023 @ 6pm

Media City Film Festival
The Capitol Theatre
121 University Ave. W
Windsor, ON
mediacityfilmfestival.com

all roses sleep (inviolate light)
Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski

Surrey Art Gallery
August 19 - December 4, 2023
Curated by Jordan Strom and Zoe Yang

Surrey Art Gallery
13750 88 Ave
Surrey, BC V3W 3L1
surrey.ca

There will be an online conversation with the artists and Lori Weidenhammer from The Native Bee Society of BC on Oct 19.

Image: Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski, still, all roses sleep (inviolate light), 2022, ultraviolet video, 14 min with scratch and sniff card.

The How-To Series commissioned for Blackflash Expanded is now available to take home in RISO!

Printing: Yolkless Press
Design: Brnesh Berhe
Guides by: Alana Bartol, Christina Battle, Roewan Crowe, and Alma Louise Visscher

Pick up a free copy at:
Snap Gallery
FAB Gallery at University of Alberta
Illingworth Kerr Gallery at AUArts
uLethbridge Art Gallery
Dunlop Art Gallery
AKA Artist-Run
Mentoring Artists for Women's Art (MAWA)

The guides continue to be online in expanded form: here

Insect Apocalypse 2023
Panelists: Dr. Eric Brown, Dr. Maya Evenden, Dr. Sherryl Vint
Invited Artists and Featured Guest: Alana Bartol, Bryce Krynski, Kevin Chen, and Veronica Briseño Castrejon
Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary

April 28, 2023, 9:30AM - 3:30PM MST
Patricia A. Whelan Performance Hall, Calgary Central Library

Free and open to the public, but capacity is limited.
Register here

Whispers in the Air
Dianne Ouellette, Alana Bartol , Bryce Krynski, Hyeseon Jeong, Seongmin Yuk
Curated By: Jaclyn Quaresma
Images Festival

Tuesday, April 25, 2023 7PM EST
Innis Town Hall 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 1J5

Purchase tickets here
Bryce and I will be attending the festival and a Q & A will be held after the screening.

Program 4
Wide Open Film Festival
Alana Bartol & Bryce Krynski, Caryn Cline, Laura Iancu, Ryan Marino, Nelson Fernandes, Wen Pey Lim, Daniele Grosso, Victor Emmanuel Navarro, Damian Gonzalez & Jeremy Weinstein, Justin Clifford Rhody, Francisco Rojas, Vasco Diogo, Cameron Kletke, Roger Horn, Manu Toro, Sofia Theodore-Pierce & Grace Mitchell

Sunday, April 23 3PM
Noble Theater, Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Free Admission, presented by Oklahoma City University Film Department in partnership with Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Learn more at: wideopeneff.com

all roses sleep (inviolate light)
Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski
March 31 - June 11, 2023
The Whyte Museum

Organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta and curated by Lindsey Sharman. The RBC New Works Gallery features new artworks by Alberta artists and continues the Art Gallery of Alberta's tradition of supporting and promoting Alberta artists.

Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
111 Bear Street Banff, AB
403-762-2291
whyte.org/exhibitions


Image: Video still, all roses sleep (inviolate light), 2022. Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski.

The University of Calgary's Office of Sustainability presents the Climate Conversations speakers series 3rd keynote panel session

Climate Justice & Artistic Practices
March 8, 2023
3–4:30 p.m. MST
On Zoom

Learn from a panel of artists and discover the ways artistic practices are making an impact in how we talk about climate change, implement climate action, and imagine a healthy future. Understand ways artistic practices can bring together diverse voices, stories and experiences to support transformative conversations, support community, influence wider cultural conversations on climate change to advance climate justice, and empower people to take action.

Speakers: Alana Bartol, Chantal Chagnon, and Nicole Martens. Moderated by Dr. Melanie Kloetzel, Professor of dance at the University of Calgary.

Learn more: https://ucalgary.ca/sustainability/mobilizing-alberta/events
Register here

BioCurious is a group exhibition featuring artists that explore living matter as their subject matter, and in some cases, their artistic medium. The selected artists – who identify as Canadian and/or Indigenous; and as – create works that bridge the gap between science and art. They propose different ways we can understand living bodies and co-existence by intertwining scientific and cultural knowledge.

Artists: Siku Allooloo, Alana Bartol, Christi Belcourt, Daphne Boyer, Hannah Claus, Nicole Clouston, Becky Comber, Ruth Cuthand, Lisa Hirmer, Charmaine Lurch, Laura Magnusson, Maria Simmons, Kara Springer, Laura St. Pierre, Jennifer Wanner, Amanda White, Jennifer Willet and Xiaojing Yan.

Art Windsor Essex
Curated by Jennifer Matotek and Julie Tuker
March 14, 2023 - October 1, 2023
https://artwindsoressex.ca/exhibitions/biocurious

Image: Alana Bartol, Hag's Taper (still), 2020, HD, 3:07.

Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski
Tilted Brick Gallery
March 3 - April 23, 2023

Open Saturdays 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. or by appointment
112 Northwest Blvd. Creston, BC
tiltedbrickgallery.com

Curator and writer Valérie Frappier wrote a feature on my work for the Autumn 2022 issue of C Magazine, Issue 152, Extraction.

Abstract
Valérie Frappier profiles Alana Bartol, whose recent work has explored the obfuscating nature of state and corporate communication around extractive sites. Having visited abandoned mines, ghost towns, visitor interpretation centres, museums, and sites proposed for new developments in Southern Alberta, Bartol seeks to ensure that harm remains legible in narratives around settler-colonial extraction.

Order a copy at https://cmagazine.com/.

I was invited to contribute to Blackflash Expanded’s ‘How to Guide’ Series. "How to Dowse (or a primer on asking better questions)" can be read online at https://blackflash.ca/expanded/how-to-dowse.

Stay tuned for a print version coming soon!

What's Held
Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet, Alana Bartol, Bruno Canadien, Sarah Fuller, Laura Grier, Amy Malbeuf, Mia Rushton + Eric Moschopedis in collaboration with Bryce Krynski, Jewel Shaw, Robin Smith Peck
Art Gallery of Grand Prairie AFA Traveling Exhibition, 2022-2024
Curated by Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet & Robin Lynch

The artworks in What’s Held explore ways of memorializing, mapping, and holding onto these significant sites, keeping our stories of them alive and present, even as the landscape shifts or carries us further away from home. Beyond settler borders and monuments, the works recognize the power and importance of place, from the desire paths left over from continually wandering the same treasured areas in meadows, fields, and forests, to the objects and scents that come to represent the ways that we’ve known these spots across landscapes.

Learn more at https://aggp.ca/trex-details/whatsheld/

Image: Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet, It Only Punctured Foam, Mixed Media, 2021.

The Audain Faculty of Art welcomes you to join us for an online artist talk with Alana Bartol, part of the Art Forum Speaker series and hosted by FRMS 300, a senior interdisciplinary studio course at ECU.

After the talk, Bartol and her collaborator Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed with facilitate an online workshop with the students in the FRMS 300 class.


Nov 9, 2022 4:00pm – 6:00pm (PST)
Join by Zoom
Meeting ID: 661 7700 2556
Passcode: 399367

Image: Alana Bartol, With a finger to her lips... (still), 2021, HD, 10:30.

Forgetting Fields
Alana Bartol with Bryce Krynski
VIVIANEART
August 5 - September 11, 2022

VIVIANEART is pleased to present Forgetting Fields an exhibition of new works by Bartol in collaboration with artist Bryce Krynski. Krynski brings a strength in video work and photography to the creation of the exhibition’s central piece, all roses sleep (inviolate light), an olfactory video, and accompanying still images. Shot using ultraviolet video, visitors are invited to see the prairie landscape from a bee’s point of view and a scratch and sniff card expands on the pleasant and pungent experience of pumpjacks, grazing cattle, prairie grasses, and wildflowers. As the solitary bee searches and dreams of a rose, the work is meant to conjure questions about our shared future.

An additional video work, Forgetting Fields II, and a drawing series, Forgetting Fields I, furthers Bartol’s conversation, punctuating her exploration of our footprint as beings and consumers of the land. In these process-based works, fire, and water become active collaborators through their use in both the creation and dissolution of imagery.

Learn more at https://vivianeart.com/exhibitions/alana-bartol-with-bryce-krynski

Image: Alana Bartol, Yarrow, Forgetting Fields I, 2021, heated milk on paper, 12 x 9 in, Photo: Kelly Fuller.

all roses sleep (inviolate light)
Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski
Art Gallery of Alberta
June 18 - October 2, 2022

all roses sleep (inviolate light) is an olfactory video that blends how bees and humans experience and use the land around us. Shot using ultraviolet video, visitors are invited to see the prairie landscape from a bee’s point of view and smell a scratch and sniff card that expands on the pleasant and pungent experience of pumpjacks, grazing cattle, prairie grasses, and wildflowers. As the solitary bee searches and dreams of a rose, the work is meant to conjure questions about our shared future.

The exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta and curated by Lindsey Sharman. Thank you to Alberta Foundation for the Arts for a grant supporting this work and to Alberta University of the Arts Faculty Professional Development fund.

Gallery hours and more information at: https://www.youraga.ca

Watch the trailer here.

Image: Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski, all roses sleep (inviolate light), still, 2022, 4K ultraviolet olfactory video, 14:10.

I had the pleasure of writing about Angeline Simon’s A Glimpse into Chinatown presented this year at the Helen Christou Gallery, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery for Blackflash Expanded. The exhibition cleverly merges past and present, drawing viewers into Lethbridge’s Chinatown through photography, archival articles, images, and documents, as well as objects from the Bow On Tong, one of the last remaining historic buildings in Chinatown.

Read it online at: blackflash.ca/expanded/more-than-a-glimpse-looking-with-care-at-chinatown-in-lethbridge/

Creative Conjuring, Ritual, and Place: Amanda Amour-Lynx’s Skite’kmujuawti in Conversation with the Works of James Gardner, Alana Bartol, and Jamie Ross by Chris Gismondi can be found in the latest issue of Esse Magazine No 105 Nouveau nouvel âge / New New Age, 2022.

This issue also includes a feature on Christina Battle’s work including Remedy Toxic Energies Summoning Circle, a project created for Remediation Room.

Subscribe or purchase a copy at: https://esse.ca/issue/nouveau-nouvel-age

This summer, I am a mentor through Connexion Exchange, a studio-based mentorship program through Connexion ARC. Through the 3-month mentorship, I am working with artist and curator Amy Ash. There will be a group exhibition of artworks created through the program in fall 2022.

Join us for an online artist talk on Tuesday, August 9th 7pm EST/4pm MST.

Visit: https://connexionarc.org for details

Frame & Frequency VIII


Adán De La Garza, Alana Bartol, Alex Culshaw, Alexander Isaenko, Benson A’kuyie, Carlos Vázquez, Clem Routledge, Dina Kelberman, Eri Kassnel, Guido Devadder, Jacob Raeder, Johannes DeYoung, Masha Vlasova, Nate Dorr, Nelson Fernandes, Niya B & Bunny Cadag, Sebastian Mary Tay, Wheeler Winston Dixon

VisArts Centre, Rockville, MD
June 3 - Aug 7, 2022

Frame & Frequency VIII presents a survey of 18 national and international new media, film, and video artists ruminating and grappling with an ever-changing world that is daunting and overwhelming, but also energizing due to a renewed urgency to issues that affect us all.

Learn more at: https://www.visartscenter.org/event/frame-frequency-viii-2

Image: Alana Bartol, Still, With a finger to her lips… 2021, HD, 10:31.

Milk and Honey, a conversation between Alana Bartol, Bill Burns, Alejandro Fangi, and Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed, facilitated by Tomas Jonsson from the Dunlop Art Gallery can be found in the May/June issue of CARFAC Saskatchewan newsletter.

Read it here

GRRL HAUS // ART AUCTION // VIDEO ART
Monday 28th at LOOPHOLE
50% of art sales donated to Ukraine Humanitarian Fund

Silent Auction begins at 7pm and ends at 9pm
In the basement, we will have underground cinema and video art screening on loop.
Films start at 7pm and go on loop till midnight
Featuring films:
Ego Nidra - Ash Austin
cavity - Ariella Tai
Hag's Taper - Alana Bartol
Cold - Lux Cho
[untitled] - Alea Adigweme
Because Time - Nicole Rayburn

North Island College (NIC) Talk Fathom Sounds

Thursday, March 3rd, 6 - 7 pm PST Online

Join the artist talk at North Island College to hear the artists in Fathom Sounds speak about their collaboration and their work currently in the exhibition, Salt-Stained Streaks of a Worthwhile Grief at the Comox Valley At Gallery March 2 – May 14 2022.

Fathom Sounds: Alana Bartol / Genevieve Robertson / Kat G Morris / Nancy Tam / Jay White

Event tickets are free and can be accessed here.

Image: Video still, Genevieve Roberston, Meniscus, 2021, HD, 2:36.

Salt Stained Streaks of a Worthwhile Grief
Fathom Sounds artist collective: Alana Bartol / Genevieve Robertson / Kat G Morris / Nancy Tam / Jay White
Comox Valley Art Gallery
March 2 - May 14 2022
comoxvalleyartgallery.com

Opening event (Zoom) March 4 2022 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Join by clicking here shortly before the event starts. Passcode is 744353.

Salt-Stained Streaks of a Worthwhile Grief is the first exhibition by Fathom Sounds as a collective, and incorporates individual work, collaborative processes centered on this region, and collective work which stems from several residencies we carried out together in Skwxwú7mesh Territory, just north of Vancouver.

We live in times where increasing floods, fire, and other climate events make it impossible to ignore the need for exploitative and extractive colonial culture to find a different relationship to the land and water. This urgency, coupled with the unpredictability of the COVID pandemic has necessitated in us a spirit of flexibility, gentleness, and generosity. Planned gatherings evolved into exchanges of letters, sound recordings, packages of materials, and other projects. We were called to ask: How do we gather, resist and protect in this time? How do artists counter colonial-capitalist perspectives that support exploitation and extractivism? When we take time to listen to these bodies of water, what do we learn? And what can we give back?

Excited to have With a finger to her lips... included in a group exhibition at Aggregate Space Gallery in Oakland, CA, USA.

Glimpses of a Drowned World
Aggregate Space Gallery
January 7 - February 19, 2022

Works by Alana Bartol, McLean Fahnestock, Omer Gal, Tanja Geis, Ahmed Ozsever, Sheri Park, Allison Roberts and Centa Schumacher

Opening Reception: January 7, 6-10pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays 1-5 and by appointment, vaccinations required for in-person events and viewing

More information at http://aggregatespacegallery.org

Image: Courtesy of McLean Fahnestock

The MISN: Mining Injustice Solidarity Network 2022 calendar is now available! Happy to be invited to include my work alongside many other incredible artists. 100% of proceeds go to land defenders and movement artists — support them by ordering your calendar now.

http://mininginjustice.org/calendar

Follow and support at IG: @mininginjusticesolidarity w: http://mininginjustice.org

I had the pleasure of writing about Kylie Fineday's online solo exhibition Earth Blanket commissioned by the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery.

Click here to view the exhibition and read the artist statement. Keep scrolling down to read The Earth Hold Us.

Excited to bring this exhibition to Regina, SK, and develop related programming with the Dunlop Art Gallery and RPL Theatre!

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature
Alana Bartol
Curated by Tomas Jonsson
Dunlop Art Gallery Sherwood Village Branch
Oct 9, 2021 – Jan 9, 2022

Opening reception and exhibition tour Oct 9th at 2 pm

Invisible Impacts Drawing Workshop
Regina Public Library, Sherwood Village Branch
Oct 9, 2021 at 3 pm

Film School with Alana Bartol
Screening and discussion of Rugano Nyoni's I Am Not a Witch
RPL Theatre
Oct 8, 2021 at 7 pm (online and in-person)

More info at https://reginalibrary.ca/dunlop-art-gallery

Hag’s Taper is included in Tune in to Green’s latest online screening “Minor Chord”, streaming until November 19, 2021.

As we enter the season that time of year harkens powerful ancestral memories, a more serious tone rules the days.

Motifs of death and decay are commonplace. We are reminded that our flesh is not immortal, but the damage we do may be. Instead, let us leave sweet memories of ourselves for future generations through serious commitment to the planet and each other, by contemplating and taking action, despite the uncomfortable changes required.

Featuring artists from around the world reflecting on ancestors, the melancholy, eerie, and strange: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tuneintogreen

My video reading wild lands dispersal (12-04-039-08 W4) is screening in TREX SE Space in Medicine Hat, Alberta from September 29 - November 3rd. Check out the one-minute preview above.

The Alberta Public Art Network (APAN) artist residency was a four month residency created to give artists living in Alberta the support to further develop their practice. The residency format was a work-from-home, research-focused opportunity where artists were supported to explore their focus around acts of care. An artist panel discussion was held at the virtual APAN Summit on October 28, 2021.

Five artists – asmaa al-issa (Mohkínstsis/Calgary), Cindy Baker (Edmonton region), Alana Bartol (Mohkínstsis/Calgary), seth cardinal dodginghorse (Tsuu’tina nation), and Faye HeavyShield (Kainai community of Standoff) were selected.

Learn more and watch the artist presentations here.

S.P.A.N.E. 2021: LAND
Curator: Johannes Zits
Alana Bartol, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Linda Duvall, Jay Kimball, Ed Pien, Eve Tagny

Free streaming Oct 15 - 30, 2021
Presented by RPL Film Theatre and VUCAVU
vucavu.com/en/rpl/s-p-a-n-e-2021-land

For the videos in S.P.A.N.E. 2021: LAND, the artists place themselves in a landscape that they converse with. While some sites are readily understood, other conversations are challenging and at times, soul searching. All of the videos are, fundamentally, personal engagements; responses to the sites where the artists have found themselves in. In each of these encounters the artists have found a way to foreground the land. We come from the earth. In one way or another, we are inextricably tied to it through the place we inhabit, the ground we walk on, and the foods we eat; and eventually we all return to the earth. Watching and listening to what the land has to say to us; observing its life forces, is a way of honouring and respecting this most fundamental of elements.

-Johannes Zits

S.P.A.N.E. (Screening of Performance Art in the Natural Environment) was originally conceived ten years ago as a platform for collectively viewing and discussing videos of performances collectively. S.P.A.N.E. 2021, is curated by artist/curator Johannes Zits, whose own practice shares an affinity with cultures in which humanity is seen as continuous with nature.

A discussion about "S.P.A.N.E. 2021: LAND" program with curator Johannes Zits and artists Linda Duvall and Jay Kimball was held on Oct 19. Watch it here.

To Dig Holes and Pierce Mountains
Nickle at Noon Artist Talk by Alana Bartol
October 21, 2021

Watch a recording of the talk on the Nickle YouTube Channel.

ORPHANED, a new documentary written and directed by Gillian McKercher of Kino Sum Productions premieres on CBC Gem October 1st. The documentary features some of my orphan well portraits.

Director Gillian McKercher explores the huge task of cleaning up thousands of idle oil and gas wells in the Canadian prairies.

Watch the documentary for free here.

Hag's Taper is an official selection for the 2021 Bogotá Experimental Film Festival and will screen in Panorama Paisajes en Tiempos Abstractos, programmed by Diego Ballesteros, August 18 - September 30, 2021.

More information at https://bogotaexperimental.com/en/landscapes-in-abstract-times-2021/

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature at uLethbridge Art Gallery is now open for in-person viewing! The exhibition has been extended until Sept 25, 2021.

The Hess Gallery is open M – F: 11 am – 4 pm and will also be available for after-hours access by scheduling a tour via Eventbrite.

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature explores the past, present, and future of coal mining in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta.
An exhibition by Alana Bartol
Curated by Dr. Josephine Mills
January 21 – Sept 25, 2021

Hess Gallery
W600, Centre for the Arts
4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, AB
(403) 329-2666
ulag.ca

Image: Alana Bartol, With a finger to her lips..., 2021, HD, 10:30.

reading wild lands is currently screening at Art Gallery of Alberta as part of sidewalk cinema alongside Isabelle Hayeur's artwork Uprooted. Sidewalk cinema is a street-level digital screen on the Northwest outside corner of the Art Gallery of Alberta.

Scarred Land: Works from the AGA Collection
August 3-September 16, 2021
See the works daily from 10am-10pm

These two videos look at landscapes that have been shaped or scarred by human development. Alana Bartol examines two places in Calgary where former oil refineries have been turned into public parks. Isabelle Hayeur is interested in sprawling suburban neighbourhoods throughout North America.

Image: Alana Bartol, reading wild lands, 2018. HD, 22:32. Art Gallery of Alberta Collection.

Groundwork
May - June 30, 2021
Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC) – Core Exhibition
Featured Exhibition at the 2021 Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival
Artists: Alana Bartol, Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Tsema Igharas
Curator: Valérie Frappier

Critical Distance Centre for Curators
No. 302 — Artscape Youngplace
180 Shaw Street Toronto, Ontario
Learn more criticaldistance.ca

Image Description (clockwise, from left to right):
Tsema Igharas, (Re)Naturalize No. 1 (Brick), 2015-16. Photo by Jonathan Igharas. Courtesy of the artist.

Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Corps roca, 2018 – ongoing. Documentation of performance, as part of a residency at Verticale – centre d’artistes, Laval, Quebec. Courtesy of the artist.

Alana Bartol, Dowser, 2016. Documentation of performance at orphan well site in Three Hills, Alberta. Photo by Karin McGinn. Courtesy of the artist.

I am thrilled to be included in the 2021 Sobey Art Award longlist! It is an honour to be included in this incredible group of artists. Congratulations to everyone on the longlist.

Thank you, Josephine Mills and the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery for the nomination and the staff at the University of Lethbridge Arts Gallery for all of their support.

Sobey Art Award Longlist 2021

My work is included in Outdoor School, a new book on contemporary environmental art edited by Diane Borsato and Amish Morrell.

Featuring interviews, essays and over 150 photographs, Outdoor School is an important contribution to discussions of contemporary art and ecology, foregrounding work that is marginal and ephemeral by nature.

Artists featured in Outdoor School include Alana Bartol, Diane Borsato, Bill Burns, Carolina Caycedo, Sameer Farooq, FASTWÜRMS, Ayumi Goto, Maggie Groat, Gabrielle Hill, Peter Morin, Public Studio, Helen Reed, Genevieve Robertson, Jamie Ross, Aislinn Thomas, Vibrant Matter, Jay White, Tania Willard, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson and D'Arcy Wilson.

Purchase the book at your local bookstore or flyingbooks.ca/shop/outdoor-school-edited-by-diane-borsato-and-amish-morrell

Tracés par le feu: frottis de charbon et ensemencements
Alana Bartol & Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed
Fondation PHI pour l’art contemporain
Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 2 – 4 PM (EST)

Tracés par le feu: frottis de charbon et ensemencements est un atelier de création en ligne conçu et animé par l’artiste Alana Bartol, ainsi que par l’artiste, botaniste et éducatrice Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed – toutes deux basées à Mohkinstsis/Calgary – en collaboration avec l’équipe de l’éducation de la Fondation PHI.

GRATUIT
RÉSERVATIONS REQUISES: education@fondation-phi.org
Capacité d’accueil: 60 participants

Learn more: fondation-phi.org/fr/evenement/bartol-pelletier-ahmed-atelier/

*Cet atelier de création sera offert en anglais. Une traduction simultanée vers le français sera offerte par l’entremise de Zoom.

Image: Alana Bartol, Plants of Grassy Mountain, 2020. Lait et charbon sur papier. Photo: blkarts.ca.

Watch a video tour of my exhibition Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature set to music by Leaf Rapids. The exhibition runs until August 26th at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery.

More about the exhibition at:
dowsinganddigging.com
artgallery.uleth.ca

New video walkthrough of Of Several Depths. Video documentation by Miles Rufelds. On view until May 24th at The Plumb.

Of Several Depths
The Plumb
April 14 - May 24 2021*

Artists: Alana Bartol, Erika DeFreitas, Anna Eyler & Nicolas Lapointe, Dana Prieto, Maria Simmons, Angela Snieder, Sara Stern, Kate Whiteway
Curator: Miles Rufelds

The Plumb
1655 Dufferin Street
Toronto, ON
Email us at info@plumb.ca to book an appointment.
More at theplumb.ca

*Extended to May 24th!

Excited to share Remediation Room, a new initiative that has been in the works for over a year now, allowing me to work with these incredible artists: Christina Battle, Tamara Lee Anne Cardinal, Rita McKeough, Nurgül Rodriguez, Mia Rushton and Eric Moschopedis.

Visit remediationroom.ca and sign up to receive news and information.

Remediation Room is an artistic response to the Canadian Energy Centre (CEC), aka “Energy War Room”, a $30 million 2019 initiative of the Alberta United Conservative government to combat “lies and myths told about Alberta’s energy industry”.

Remediation Room supports the research and work of artists investigating concepts of remediation in nuanced, thoughtful, and critical ways. We aim to foster strategies for collective community building, knowledge sharing, and connections between artists and the public.

Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada and Calgary Arts Development for their support.

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature
Alana Bartol
January 21 - August 26, 2021
University of Lethbridge Art Gallery
Curated by Josephine Mills

Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature explores the past, present, and future of coal mining in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta on Treaty 7 territory in Southwestern Alberta. Many of the artworks respond to the proposed Grassy Mountain Coal Project.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the exhibition is not yet open to the public but stayed tuned for videos sharing the artworks and when and how to safely visit the gallery in-person.

Learn more at:
dowsinganddigging.com
artgallery.uleth.ca

Gallery contact jon.oxley@uleth.ca.

Image: Alana Bartol, Enfleurage: Dandelion and Sow Thistle (Hillhurst, Sunnyside, Downtown West), Essential Oils (for Alberta), 2016, archival inkjet print, 22" x 32" edition of 3.


Editions
Aida Muluneh, Alana Bartol, Diane Landry, Erik Olson, Kyle Beal, Tyler Bright Hilton, Winnie Truong
January 22 - March 14, 2021
VIVIANEART

This exhibition highlights a breadth of approach to editioned artwork, combining the mediums of photography, printmaking, and video in both traditional and experimental forms.

More info at:
vivianeart.com/exhibitions/editions/

Excited to launch a video about "Processes of Remediation", a project I have been working on with the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery. Thank you to Director/Curator, Josephine Mills and the amazing team at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery. Please give it a watch on Vimeo (above) or the UofL Art Gallery YouTube!

My latest post sharing artworks from two new series "Plants for Grassy Mountain" and "Seeds for Grassy Mountain", a collaborative artwork with Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed. I also share some of the ways you can get involved in efforts to stop open-pit coal mining in Southern Alberta. Dowsing and Digging is a project with the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery.

Find it on the http://dowsinganddigging.com blog.

I was invited to create a video sharing my latest research and artwork for Eastern Edge Gallery's Fancy Artist Talks. Thank you to Eastern Edge Gallery for inviting me to participate. In 2018, I participated in a residency with Eastern Edge Gallery and was one of the 4 artists that headlined the HOLD FAST Festival. You can learn more about my current project Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature on http://dowsinganddigging.com

Thank you to everyone that joined Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed of Latifa's Herbs and ALCLA Native Plants and I for the plant walks we facilitated in downtown Mohkinstsis (Calgary) this summer. Supported by the City of Calgary's Public Art Program, the walks were held in conjunction with the Open Spaces exhibition of my work entitled Essential Oils (for Alberta) at the Centre St. LRT station. Photo: blkarts.ca.

Thank you Galleries West for the article about A Woman Walking (the City Limits) on view at VIVIANEART in Places-Species-Bodies, Walking Alberta, a 2-person exhibition with Sandra Meigs. Read the article here.

Excited to announce my 2-person exhibition:

PLACES-SPECIES-BODIES, WALKING ALBERTA
SANDRA MEIGS + ALANA BARTOL
VIVIANEART
24 JULY – 30 AUGUST, 2020

“Places-Species-Bodies, Walking Alberta” is an alternative Alberta landscape exhibition, featuring the work of artists Sandra Meigs and Alana Bartol. Both have created these pieces “en Plein-air” each in their own way recording their interactions and observations as they walked and interacted with the spaces around them.

VivianeArt
1018 9 Avenue SE, Calgary, AB T2G 0H7
(587) 349-2014
Wednesday to Saturday 11am-6pm
Sunday noon-5pm

http://vivianeart.gallery/exhibitions/sandra-meigs-alana-bartol/
Store: http://vivianeart.store/

My series Essential Oils (for Alberta) is up in the City of Calgary Open Spaces window space at the Centre Street LRT platform on 7 Avenue between 1 Street S.E. and Centre Street for summer 2020.

In 2016, The City of Calgary Public Art Program launched Open AiR, a pilot community-based public art residency that allowed me to create this work exploring connections to health, natural resources, and place through enfleurage. Enfleurage uses animal fat or vegetable oils to extract fragrances or essential oils from botanical materials. As part of this work, I co-facilitated an enfleurage workshop with Aromatherapist Deanna Russell of Nature Notes and developed a series of public walks in collaboration with herbalist, botanist, and educator Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed, owner of Latifa's Herbs and co-owner of ALCLA Native Plants.

More here: https://www.calgary.ca/csps/recreation/public-art/open-spaces.html

Thank you, Brainard Carey for the opportunity to talk about my artwork on WYBCX Yale Radio. Check out the Praxis Interview Magazine archive with over 1,200 interviews with artists, curators, poets, writers, critics, and others about studio practice from Yale University radio WYBCX.

Click here to listen.

I am happy to share that my video reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) will be screened at the Bogota Experimental Film Festival in August 2020.

BOGOTA EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL is a Colombian platform for creation, exhibition, and, circulation of audiovisual works of art that focus on narrative, technical and conceptual experimentation. The festival welcomes works and artists that transcend the aesthetics, technical, and semiotic boundaries and break with dominant and standardized discourse.

We believe that experimental cinema is a free, radical and purposeful cinema that responds to the aesthetic, political or philosophical need to see and explore cinematic horizons, away from large industries and hegemonic formulas of creation. It is through experimental cinema that we find authentic ways to create audiovisual art.

Festival dates: Aug 19-29, 2020

Screening schedule will be available at: http://bogotaexperimental.com

Very excited to announce that my video reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) will be included in the Obskuur Ghent Film Festival in Belgium.

Obskuur Ghent Film Festival is dedicated to recognizing quality films and filmmakers and showcasing their work. This is a quarterly film festival with a unique screening operation. The festival showcases innovative, underground, experimental, and independent movies by aspiring local as well as international filmmakers. All selected films will be screened approximately 36 times during the festival.

Location:
Alfred Sküll Gallery Alpacastraat 29, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Screening dates:
July 12 (opening event) & 26, 2020
August 9 & 23, 2020
September 6 & 20, 2020

http://www.ghentfilmfestival.com/

Visit Dowsing and Digging to follow my research and process as I develop a new body of work through a residency with University of Lethbridge Art Gallery.

This work began with my research on dowsing and the life and work of Martine de Bertereau, a mining engineer and the first recorded female mineralogist and a mining engineer who lived and worked in the service of the French monarchy in the 17th century. de Bertereau used many techniques to find mineral deposits throughout Europe including dowsing and botany. While she wrote two texts on her work, her dowsing techniques and the form of the specialized instruments she used were kept secret. Accused of witchcraft, she died in prison.

The story of de Bertereau is a complex one that points to the history of dowsing in connection to mining and resource extraction rooted in colonial violence that she both participated in and was killed by. Through research on the past, present, and future of coal mining in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, the work is situated in present-day conversations about mining and resource extraction. As of June 1, 2020, the 1976 Coal Policy has been revoked by the Kenney government which may mean that areas of the rocky mountains and foothills may soon become open-pit coal mines.

The resulting works will be presented in a solo exhibition entitled Processes of Remediation: art, relationships, nature at University of Lethbridge Art Gallery.

Learn more: http://dowsinganddigging.com

My film reading wild lands dispersal (6-18-048-02 W5) will be part of GRRL HAUS Cinema's free online screening program of Experimental film and video May 22 - 28, 2020. Originally planned to be screened at Loophole in Berlin, all of GRRL HAUS Cinema's programming has been moved online in response to COVID-19. Full line up below.

Watch online at: http://www.grrlhauscinema.com/online-screenings.html
http://vimeo.com/showcase/7150586

Experimental
No! - Claudia Syhre
tenderfliud - Liberty Antonia Sadler
Fucked Up Point Blank - Shayna Connelly
this iis sn't - Theo Eliezer
now here - YL Hsueh
Dada Ship - Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) - Alana Bartol
Dérive - Margot Roussel
Theory of EVAlution - Eva Justine Torkkola
ECLIPSE - Amanda Kim
Lilith - Erofili Moraiti

I am excited to announce that Fathom Sounds has been awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant.

Fathom Sounds is Alana Bartol, Kat Morris, Genevieve Robertson, Nancy Tam and Jay White. We have come together to think long term about the health of water and the role we play in responding to urgent ecological, political and social issues that collect around water.

Átl’ka7tsem, or Howe Sound, is a fjord in Skwxwú7mesh Territory, British Columbia, just north of Vancouver. Woodfibre LNG, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility is currently proposed to be built and operated on the old Woodfibre Pulp and Paper Mill site near Squamish, BC. LNG operations, including pipelines, the onshore liquefaction plant, LNG tanker storage and transport, will threaten the health of humans and wildlife living above and below the surface of the water. Together, we will collaboratively produce artworks that translate the overlapping and complex ecological and socio-political systems that gather around and within Átl’ka7tsem.

The term “extractivism” simultaneously evokes a physical process as well as a mindset, implying a forceful removal and subsequent severing of relations. By intersecting strands of ecology, geology, and performance theory, Groundwork examines how land-based actions can challenge the colonial-capitalist framework of extractivism.
-Valérie Frappier

A featured exhibition of the 2020 CONTACT Festival, Groundwork, a 3-person exhibition curated by Valérie Frappier, is postponed until 2021. The exhibition presents the work of Alana Bartol, Ileana Hernandez Camacho, and Tsema Igharas at Critical Distance Centre for Curators (Toronto). Check back later in the year for new dates.

Learn more:
Scotiabank Contact Festival
Critical Distance Centre for Curators

Thank you Anj Fermor of the online publication Studio for interviewing me about my work.

Studio is an online publication that describes contemporary art with a voice that is sincere, critical, and intimate.

Read "Disrupt the Everyday and Point to the Critical: Interview with Alana Bartol" here: https://www.studiopublication.com/alana-bartol-interview

Image: Alana Bartol, Un-camouflaging #7, 2012, archival inkjet print, 57 x 76 cm, ed. 1/5. Photo: Arturo Herrera.

reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) is an official selection of the Brussels Independent Film Festival.

In 2020, the international film community will see the return of the renewed Brussels Independent Film Festival, an annual, weeklong event that highlighted independent and experimental cinematic talent for four decades.

Festival dates: Feb 9-15, 2020
Screenings at: Cinema Galeries at Saint Hubert Galleries, Cinema Ritcs and the Atomium.

Screening dates and times will be posted Jan 18. Learn more at: http://brusselsfilmfestival.com

Happy to announce that my work will be included in the 2020 PARTICLE + WAVE Media Arts Festival presented by EMMEDIA. More information on the festival and screening below.

PARTICLE + WAVE: Screening Program
Thursday, January 30, 2020 from 7:30 – 9:30PM (Doors open at 7PM)
Location: Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers – #100, 1725 10 Ave SW (Back Alley Entrance)
Tickets: $10 in advance / $15 at the door
Purchase at: http://showpass.com/particlewave2020-screening

Featuring a performance by Ghostkeeper w/ Joe Kelly (Calgary) and films by Stephanie Barber (USA), Alana Bartol (Calgary), Esther Cheung (Canada), Luca Cioci (USA), Jack Cochran & Pamela Falkenberg (USA), Jennifer Dysart (Canada), Emmanuel Fraisse (France), Yuri Muraoka (Japan), Thadeusz Tischbein (Germany), and Nick White (Canada).

EMMEDIA is proud to present this year’s screening program for PARTICLE + WAVE that features filmmakers from across Canada and around the world that experiment with narratives, mediums and perspectives. This year’s program explores the intimate connection between our personal relationships within the foreign and familiar, natural and man-made landscapes.

More at: http://emmedia.ca/2019/12/particlewave2020/

I am pleased to announce that reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) is an official selection of the Short Long World Film Festival in Corrientes, Argentina. Festival dates are November 7, 8, 9 and 10, 2019 at Museo de Bellas Artes de Corrientes.


Learn more at: https://festivalslwf.wordpress.com

I am pleased to announce that reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) is an official selection of the Istanbul Experimental Film Festival.

Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival is a pioneering showcase of avant-garde and experimental cinema in Turkey. Their goal is to bring the best in contemporary experimental cinema from around the world to live audiences in Istanbul.

Nov 13-17, 2019

Learn more at: http://istanbulexperimental.com

I am happy to announce that reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) is an official selection of the Blow-up Arthouse Film Festival in Chicago. The annual international festival presents narrative, musical and documentary films, shorts, animations, and experimental films.

Nov 9-11, 2019
Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago

Learn more at: http://www.blowupfilmfest.com

Installation view: Alana Bartol, reading wild lands, (2018) and Pendulum I (the Dowser's Pendulum), (2018), courtesy the artist. If the River Ran Upwards, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Photo: Jessica Wittman.


I am happy to announce that Pendulum I (the Dowser's Pendulum) and reading wild lands (2018) have been purchased for the collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

The word remediation is often understood as the action of remedying something, in particular of reversing or stopping environmental damage. In reading wild lands, performative dowsing readings are conducted at Alberta Energy Regulator Core Storage Facility and two contaminated sites situated on land within the Treaty 7 agreement in Moh’kins’tsis/Calgary, both City of Calgary parks: Inglewood Wildlands and Old Refinery Park. These parks were once the site of oil refineries and have undergone, or are currently undergoing, environmental remediation.

Dowsing involves asking questions, the answers are understood through the movements of the dowsing tools offering yes, no, or unclear answers. In this work the audience is left to contemplate what the sites are communicating.

Thank you to Canada Council for the Arts, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and Jacqueline Bell, Curator, Walter Phillips Gallery for their support of this work.

ECOLOGY IS HUMAN | NATURE

ALANA BARTOL, TAMARA LEE-ANNE CARDINAL, CARLEY FREISEN, LYNDAL OSBORNE, MARINA ROY & CLINT WILSON
Curated by Derrick Chang
July 11, 2019 - October 31, 2019

Ecology is Human | Nature points out the fact that at its core, ecology is the biological need to co-exist within nature. The impact of human influence and economic development foregrounds the urgent need for a balanced conversation between industry and the environment.

Learn more: https://aggp.ca/exhibitions/ecology-is-human-nature/

On Friday, September 27th my video work reading wild lands (2018) will be screening as part of Art Spin Hamilton alongside some incredible artists at the Gage Park Tropical Greenhouse. The spin starts at 6pm and screening + after party is 8:30pm. More info below and on the website: https://artspinhamilton.ca/Events

Featuring works along the route by
Julia Garlisi
Tess Martens
Chris Myhr
+ and video works curated by Laura Demers:
Alana Bartol, Mara Eagle, Tegan Moore, Emily Moriarty and Ursula Biemann in collaboration with Mo Diener.

More at: http://artspinhamilton.ca

Essential Oils for Alberta (2016) a series of 10 photographs (55.88 x 81.28 cm) is now part of the City of Calgary's Public Art collection.

A series of walks, workshops, and photographs created during Open AiR, a twelve-week residency with The City of Calgary's Public Art program exploring connections to health, natural resources, and place through enfleurage.

Enfleurage is a process that uses animal fat or vegetable oils to extract fragrances or essential oils from botanical materials. Botanical and other materials were collected or foraged in the neighbourhoods of Hillhurst, Sunnyside, and Downtown West within Mohkínstsis/Calgary. Some materials were donated by community members.

A series of public walks and workshops were developed in collaboration with herbalist and botanist Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed and Aromatherapist Deanna Russell. Visit the Walks and Workshops gallery here to learn more.

To view the photo series click here.

Valérie Frappier reviews my work in The Senses and Society, Vol 14 2019 - Issue 2: Learning to make sense: interdisciplinary perspectives on sensory education and embodied enculturation.

See options for online access here: Reviews: Alana Bartol: Orphan Well Adoption Agency, Edmonton, Latitude 53, 7 December 2018 – 26 January 2019

My video reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) will be included in Photophobia: Contemporary Moving Image Festival in Program 2 on August 10th. Details and links below!

Photophobia is the 13th annual festival of short-format contemporary media, film, video and moving image presented in partnership between the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Hamilton Artists Inc. Established in 1999, Photophobia was Hamilton’s first film and video festival dedicated to the development of experimental time-based media at a time when there were no such platforms in the Hamilton community.

Not confined by restrictions or themes, Photophobia showcases contemporary practitioners who test the boundaries of the medium in a free, multi-part festival series presented outdoors under the cover of night. All three screenings are free and accessible.

Saturday, August 10, 8:30 – 11:00 pm
Hamilton Artists Inc., ArcelorMittal Dofasco Courtyard
155 James Street North, Hamilton, ON

Learn more on Hamilton Artists Inc website: http://theinc.ca/photophobia

My film reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) is an official selection of the Hong Kong Arthouse Festival, screening June 18, 2019 at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

http://hongkongfilmfestival.com/

I recently completed an artist residency with the Canadian Armed Forces Artist Program in Latvia. Over the next two years, I will develop work for a group exhibition in Ottawa at the Canadian War Museum in 2022.

Photo: Adazi Shooting and Training Range, Alana Bartol, 2019

I was interviewed for the latest episode of CANADALAND's podcast Commons CRUDE #4 – Orphan Wells: Citizen Con. I highly recommend listening to the whole Crude series. Thank you to Arshy Mann, Jordan Cornish and the rest of the staff behind the show.

"What happens when the oil wells run dry? Environmental damage, government bailouts and a scheme that some are comparing to the subprime mortgage crisis. And all of this is just the beginning..."

Listen here

I am pleased to announce that I am one of 25 artists longlisted for the 2019 Sobey Art Award. The Sobey Art Award is Canada’s contemporary art prize recognizing emerging artists from across the country.

It is an honour to be nominated. Thank you to Lindsey Sharman, Naomi Potter, and Shauna Thompson for their support. Visit the National Gallery of Canada's website to learn more about the longlisted artists: http://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/sobey-art-award/artists-2019

My film reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) will be included in the Hazel Eye Film Festival, screening Monday, April 29th, 2019.

The Hazel Eye Film Festival (HEFF) presents experimental live action films and experimental animations that push the boundaries of the audiovisual art form. The festival is co-directed by Eli Hayes & Jordan Mumford and includes a retrospective on the career of Canadian independent, experimental filmmaker, Mike Hoolboom.

HEFF runs April 19 - April 30th, 2019. Official Selections will screen online, via HEFF's website, on designated days throughout the festival week:
http://hazeleyefilmfestival.com

To accompany the found/held exhibition Access Gallery produced this publication to highlight aspects of each artists’ research to situate the exhibition in context with their larger practices.

found/held presents work by Alana Bartol (Calgary), Lindsay Dobbin (Bay of Fundy), and Ursula Handleigh (Halifax), and Pavitra Wickramasinghe (Montreal). Considering these works through a drawing lens, this exhibition investigates the artists’ use of concrete materials—water, air, metal, paper—to capture phenomena—resonance, breath, energy, the fold. Inspired by reading about the disappearing skill of wave pilots in the Marshall Islands—specially trained in the ancient art of reading the waves by feel and sight—Wickramasinghe’s Coral bones/La mer are a return to these innate navigation skills and of the body to the environment. Dobbin’s practice of drumming the surface of the Bay of Fundy is reflected Arrival, in which they build a spacious soundscape with two tones acting as wave cycles. With her video reading wild lands, Bartol re-imagines dowsing as a technology for remediation of contaminated land. Lastly, Handleigh uses experiential photography and alternative processes of image making to record personal histories, such as I can feel you forgetting, which captures both the impressions of her hands and the humidity of her breath.

Published by Access Gallery
Katie Belcher, Director/Curator
Layout & Cover Design by Catherine de Montreuil
Printed and bound in Vancouver by Precision Graphics

$20 ed. of 100, available for purchase: here

found/held
Access Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Alana Bartol, Lindsay Dobbin, Ursula Handleigh, and Pavitra Wickramasinghe
Curated by Katie Belcher
02 March to 13 April 2019
This exhibition is part of the 2019 Capture Photography Festival Selected Exhibition Program

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday 01 March from 7-9pm
IN CONVERSATION: Ursula Handleigh and Pavitra Wickramasinghe, with curator Katie Belcher 02 March 2019 from 2-4pm

Image: Pavitra Wickramasinghe, Coral bones/La mer, Mois Multi & La Chambre Blanche, Québec, 2018. Photo by Ivan Binet.

Thank you to Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity for creating a video spotlight on my work. Special thanks to Devon Murphy and Nicholas Lehmann for their work on this.

Orphan Well Adoption Agency publication launch Saturday, January 26th, 2019 from 2-5pm at Latitude 53 in Edmonton. The 40 page publication includes images from the Orphan Well Adoption Agency exhibition at Latitude 53 and texts by Lindsey Sharman and Lou Sheppard. Publications are $20 and can be purchased at the gallery or online through Latitude 53's website:
http://www.latitude53.org/publications/alana-bartol-orphan-well-adoption-agency

Thank you Global News Edmonton for featuring the Orphan Well Adoption exhibition. Watch the story here.

Orphan Well Adoption Agency is featured in an article on CBC. I was speaking about the project today on the CBC Radio Morning Show in Edmonton. The OWAA is at Latitude 53 until January 26th. Visit and adopt a well today...

Read the story here

Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA) is up at Latitude 53 in Edmonton until January 26th. Gallery hours: Mon - Fri 11 am - 7 pm and Sat 12-5 pm. Meet with one of our OWAA representatives every Saturday 12 - 5 pm throughout the exhibition to adopt a well.

Read the exhibition essay by Lindsay Sharman: here

Alana Bartol: Orphan Well Adoption Agency
December 7, 2018–January 26, 2019
Opening reception Friday, December 14 at 7:00 pm
Dowsing workshop Saturday, December 15 at 1:00 pm

Calgary artist Alana Bartol creates relationships between the personal sphere and the landscape, particular to our moment of environmental precarity. Orphan Well Adoption Agency re-imagines industrial remediation as a non-profit that finds caretakers for orphaned oil and gas wells in Alberta. Orphan Well Adoption Agency explores dowsing as technology for remediation and for discovering alternative relationships to natural resources, with a touch of humour. The OWAA off-site office opens for adoption each Saturday during the run of the exhibition.

Visit Latitude 53 for more information: www.latitude53.org

My short film TOTAL FIELD will be screening in Boston on Dec 14presented by GRRL HAUS Cinema at Dorchester Art Project in collaboration with Boston Hassle. See the Facebook event for more information.

One of my latest short videos reading wild lands (dispersal 6-18-048-02 W5) will be screened at the 15 Festival Transterritorial de Cine Underground Dec 9-11 at various locations in Buenos Aires and Quilmes, Argentina from Dec 1 - 10, 2018. Films are screened in projection rooms, neighborhoods, streets, and non-traditional exhibition spaces.

Watch a 2 min preview

After speaking about my work as part of the Art NOW series at the University of Lethbridge, the Lethbridge Herald wrote an article on my work:

https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/lethbridge-news/2018/11/22/artist-brings-attention-to-orphan-wells-in-alberta/

I will be speaking as part of the Art NOW Series at the University of Lethbridge on Nov 19, 2018. Details below. Thank the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery for making this presentation possible.

Art NOW Series: Alana Bartol
Noon, November 19, 2018
University Recital Hall
Free, everyone welcome!

https://www.uleth.ca/notice/events/art-now-series-alana-bartol#.XEuJ989KiL8

Pleased to announce TOTAL FIELD is in the program Horizontal Variances at Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative in Regina, SK, curated by Amber Christensen and Colton Bates with works by artists from Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary.

Pick up a copy of the fall 2018 issue of Canadian Art to read Areum Kim's article "When Oil Is Our Lifeblood" on my work and the work of Bruno Canadien and Amy Malbeuf. On stands until Dec 2018!

You can read the article here: https://canadianart.ca/features/when-oil-is-our-lifeblood/

Cover Image: Jason de Haan, Proposal for a Megalith on a Maritime Beach (detail), 2016, digital collage. Courtesy the artist and Clint Roenisch.

Check out my hit list on Akimbo! Featuring "The Marrow Thieves", nematodes, my cat Bean and more: http://www.akimbo.ca/hitlist/?id=483

Alana Bartol & Mia Rushton + Eric Moschopedis

Our plants have settled into their new home at the Esker Project Space! The plants (many considered weeds), were collected from the construction site across the street from the Esker and grown from seed. Now in their new planter, the shadow of which forms the shape of the condominium to come in their place, they will continue to grow into the fall season. A water-filtration systems allows the water from the planter to move through the planter bed, bringing water to a potted snake plant at the front of the installation. The snake plant, a tropical import, stands as a symbol of the types of plants that are coveted in office spaces and condominium interiors.

Learn more about the project and main space exhibitions on the Esker website:
https://eskerfoundation.com/exhibition/alanabartolmiarushtonericmoschopedis/

Installation is up until Oct 28th and can be viewed from street level.
Opening reception for exhibition Friday, Sept 21 - 6-10pm

Photo: Bryce Krynski

Very excited to announce I will be conducting a workshop/performance on Sept 23rd in Mississauga for "The work of WIND: AIR, LAND, and Sea", a 10-day contemporary arts festival in Southdown area in Mississauga presented by Blackwood Gallery at University of Toronto Mississauga. My performance entitled "a slick, a smear, awash in green" questions corporate practices of remediation of contaminated sites.

Visit the website for more info (scroll down to Sept 23 to view information about my workshop): https://workofwind.ca/

Read Eva Crocker's review of HOLD FAST Contemporary Art festival, including my performance "we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows" here:
http://canadianart.ca/reviews/hold-fast-contemporary-arts-festival/

Photo: Dan Smith

Images from A Woman Walking (the City Limits) are featured in Barbed Magazine, Issue 6 Suburbia is Calling.

Barbed Magazine is a contemporary art magazine in Metro Detroit. Barbed features artists’ works who live in and are from the Windsor/Detroit region. Founded in September 2014, Barbed promotes the work of women-identifying artists, and artists from LGBTQ, Asian, Black, Latino, immigrant and other minority communities.

Barbed is a limited edition publication, printed twice annually; in the spring and winter. Available for purchase locally in Detroit, at MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit,) in San Francisco at Adobe Books and McNally Jackson Books, in Manhattan, New York.

Learn more here: https://barbedmagazine.com/Suburbia-Is-Calling-Issue-06-Spring-2018

Cover: Eric Magassa

Listen to an interview Mia Rushton and I did with Palgary Alamac's Peter Oliver about our current project with Eric Moschopedis at the Esker Project Space: http://cjsw.com/program/the-almanacs/episode/20180823/

Photo: Bryce Krynski

Read Lindsey Sharman's review of If the river ran upwards in Galleries West:
http://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/art-and-industry

View a PDF it online through the link below. Featured on the cover is yours truly...

https://easternedge.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/HOLDFAST-2018-Program-FinalWEB.pdf

Back in June 2018, I participated in d.talks public forum on public art in Calgary. Thanks to Sprawlcast for highlighting the discussion on one of their episodes:

https://sprawlcalgary.com/sprawlcast-ep-6-beyond-the-big-blue-ring-101981e6f4cb

Upcoming exhibition events for "If the river ran upwards":

Exhibition Events

If the river ran upwards
Silvina Babich / Alana Bartol / Diane Borsato / Carolina Caycedo
T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss & Anne Riley / Genevieve Robertson

June 16 – August 26, 2018

Walter Phillips Gallery, Main Space
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Curated by Jacqueline Bell

Open Studio video by Banff Centre on "If the river ran upwards" can be viewed here

Alana Bartol & Mia Rushton and Eric Moschopedis

a hint of perennial magic lingers in its fingertips
August 6 - October 28, 2018
A site-specific project that examines native and non-native weed species in relation to urban development in the community of Inglewood.

ESKER FOUNDATION
1011 – 9th Avenue S.E. Fourth Floor, http://eskerfoundation.art
Tue - Sun 11am to 6pm, Thu - Fri 11am to 8pm

I've been invited to Fogo Island as a visiting artist with the Museum of the Flat Earth. I'll be conducting a pendulum dowsing workshop and performance at the Marine Interpretation Centre on Saturday, July 14th 1-4pm.

The following week, I will be off to Union House Arts, a new art space under development in Port Union, NL and Labrador for another workshop. Then I will be headed back to St. John's, NL to complete my summer residency with Eastern Edge Gallery leading up to the HOLD FAST Festival.

Thank you to Calgary Arts Development and Alberta College of Art+Design for funding that made these opportunities possible.

My short film TOTAL FIELD (2017) will be screened at Art in the Open, a contemporary arts festival in Charlottetown, PEI.

Learn more at: https://artintheopenpei.com/

Pick up a copy of July/August 2018 Sculpture magazine to read Maeve Hanna's review of my solo exhibition at TRUCK Contemporary Art In Blood and Bone: https://www.sculpture.org

Cover: Wilmer Wilson IV, From My Paper Bag Colored Heart, 2012. View of performance at Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, DC. Photo: © Wilmer Wilson IV, Courtesy CONNERSMITH, Washington, DC.

I have been selected to participate in the HOLD FAST festival and summer residency presented by Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John's, NL. Throughout July I will be developing work that will be presented at the HOLD FAST Festival: Aug 8-12, 2018. During the residency, I will be visiting the Mine Branch Core Storage Libraries in St. John’s, Springdale, and Pasadena, NL conducting drill cutting and core sample readings using various dowsing methods.

Learn more about Eastern Edge Gallery and the HOLD FAST Festival here:
http://easternedge.ca/hold-fast/2018-2/

Image: Carolina Caycedo

Artists: Silvina Babich, Alana Bartol, Diane Borsato, Carolina Caycedo, T'uy't'tanat-Cease Wyss & Anne Riley, Genevieve Robertson. Curated by Jacqueline Bell

'If the river ran upwards' reflects artists' engagements with regions across the Americas that have been sites of industrial activity. Working across mediums, materials and processes, the works locate the ethical orientations and directions for ecological justice from within the nexus of communities, ecologies or knowledge of a region.

Opening Reception: Friday, June 15, 6- 9 PM

June 16 - August 26, 2018
Walter Phillips Gallery
Banff Centre
(403) 762-6281
https://www.banffcentre.ca/walter-phillips-gallery

Formed by Sand
June 21 - Sept 30, 2018
Lougheed House, Calgary
Curated by Caroline Loewen

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday:
11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Saturday & Sunday:
10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Kelly Andres
Alana Bartol
Caitlind Brown, Wayne Garrett and Lane Shordee
Emma Gammans
Megan Green
Jennifer Ireland
Chase Key
Stephen Riether
Isabel Porto
David Yowney
Philip Vandermey and Jessie Andjelic

More at: http://www.lougheedhouse.com/exhibits/

Let's Talk About...Public Art. Excited to be part of this conversation with d.talks in Calgary.

How do we define public art? Does it relate to our values or influence how we identify with our city? What’s our relationship with artists’ process? Join d.talks for a discussion on the value of public art. Not the cost, but the ways that public art connects people to place.

Alana Bartol / Artist
Iman Bukhari / Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation
Dan Jacobson / IMMERSE research group, University of Calgary
Michelle Reid / Cultural Landscape Lead, City of Calgary
Moderated by: Ciara McKeown / Public Art Consultant and Curator
Join us on Thursday June 7th 6pm at Victoria Pavilion at the Calgary Stampede.

Tickets at: http://www.dtalks.org/upcomingevents/2018/5/10/lets-talk-aboutpublic-art

I am one of six artists selected to participate in the Canadian Artists Armed Forces program in 2019. Check back for updates on where I will be deployed:
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/gal/ap-pa/index-eng.asp

My film TOTAL FIELD will be presented at Berlin Feminist Film Week March 8-14, 2018. To see a preview, click here. For more information, visit Vtape's website: http://www.vtape.org.

More on Berlin Feminist Film Week here: http://berlinfeministfilmweek.com/

Very honoured to present my work at Running with Concepts: The Empathic Edition Sat. March 10th at Blackwood Gallery in Toronto.

This 3-day hybrid event brings together artists, researchers, activists, and care professionals to discuss the ethics of empathy. The event aims to challenge dominant assumptions about institutional forms of collective welfare. I will be speaking about Orphan Well Adoption Agency and concepts of care-taking in the oil and gas industry

More here: http://blackwoodgallery.ca/events/2018/RWCEmpathicEdition.html

My interview with curator Shannon Bingeman is available online (pages 9-16): http://albertasocietyofartists.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/FINAL-Broadstrokes-2017-Fall-web.pdf

I spoke with Leah Sandals at Canadian Art about the Orphan Well Adoption Agency: http://canadianart.ca/features/alana-bartol-orphan-well-adoption-agency/

Read the exhibition essay for In Blood and Bone by Ashley Bedet on TRUCK Contemporary Art's blog: http://truckcontemporaryart.blogspot.ca/2017/09/essay-in-blood-and-bone.html

In Blood and Bone runs September 8 - October 14 / 2017 in the TRUCK Contemporary Art Main Space & Parkade. Opening Reception September 8 @ 7PM.

September 8, 2017 to October 14, 2017
Opening reception Friday September 8, at 7:00 PM

TRUCK Contemporary Art
2009 10 Ave SW Calgary, AB
More at:
http://www.truck.ca/events/1031

Hours: Tues- Fri 11am - 5pm and Sat noon - 5pm
Closed Sunday and Monday
Orphan well adoption interviews will be conducted every Saturday from 1 -3pm

In Blood and Bone asks how dowsing might shift our relationships to natural resources, technology, and place, while examining remediation, care, and the reliability of information. Dowsing or ‘water-witching’ is a form of divination used to locate ground water, oil, sites, and information. Last year, the Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA) began investigating new methods of remediation through the practice of dowsing at abandoned oil well sites in Alberta. From September 8 - October 14, 2017 the OWAA will have an off-site office at TRUCK Contemporary Art. Oil well adoptions will be facilitated throughout the exhibition. Learn more at: http://www.orphanwelladoptionagency.com

In Blood and Bone is supported by funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.

This July, artist Maggie Flynn and I are participating in M:ST Performative Art Festival's 3rd annual fundraiser HOT OIL: http://mstfestival.org/hotoil

If you are able to donate, you not only supporting upcoming programming for Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival Society, but 50% of the proceeds will help support the artist of your choice. Donations will support my current project: The Orphan Well Adoption Agency, which will launch at TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary this fall as part of a solo exhibition.

On Thursday July 27th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm I will be performing Ask Your Best, a performance inviting the public to join me for a one-on-one divining sessions at Stride Gallery. For your donation, you will not only receive documentation of the performance but even more gifts (see below).

This July, donate to the Orphan Well Adoption Agency:
-A donation of $15 or more you will receive a postcard of an orphan well that is currently in need of a caretaker.
-A donation of $150 or more, you will receive an artist’s rendering of an orphan well.
-A donation of $250 or more, you will receive a postcard of an orphan well, an artist’s rendering of an orphan well, a personalized letter from an orphan well, and a drawing from the Inner End (Service Roads) series.

In return, for each donation you also receive:
– A charitable tax receipt,
– A membership to M:ST and,
– Exclusive documentation of the performance you supported!

Visit: mstfestival.org/alana-bartol-hot-oilmstfestival.org/alana-bartol-hot-oil to donate

About the Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA)
The OWAA is dedicated to finding “forever homes” for abandoned oil wells through symbolic adoptions. In an effort towards remediation and healing, the OWAA is in pursuit of facilitating relationships of divestment. As the oil and gas industry enters rocky times, the orphanage is growing. With over 80,000 inactive oil wells across the province of Alberta, there are 1,400 orphan wells up for adoption this year.

Learn more at: http://orphanwelladoptionagency.com

A selection of photographs and works in progress are up this week in the lobby of the Santa Fe Art Institute June 13-18, 2017.

Thank you to ACAD's Professional Affairs Funding and the Santa Fe Art Institute Financial Aid Award. Without their support my participation in this residency would not have been possible.

Water-Witching for Wanderers (and Wonderers) publication launch next week!
Saturday, June 24th 2 - 4 pm
Quarry Park Library
108 Quarry Park Rd, Calgary, AB T2C 3E7

Works by: Ashley Bedet, Elisa Fernandez-Leon, Terrance Houle, Pamela Krowicki, Bryce Krynski (BLK), Jenne Newman,  Ruby Planidin, Nikki Reimer, Patty Amestica, and Sean Taal

Water-witching for Wanderers (and Wonderers) is a public art project in the community of Quarry Park in Calgary, Alberta, developed and curated by Calgary-based artists Alana Bartol and Sarah Nordean.

The project began with an artist-led workshop and walk that invited the public to explore the community Quarry Park through dowsing. Following the walk, five Calgary-based artists and the workshop participants were invited to create small artworks to be hidden in Quarry Park in June 2017. 

Dowsing or water-witching asks the land to speak, to disclose its information: a form of divination used to locate ground water, mineral deposits, lost objects, and other resources such as oil. Dowsing, in this project, is a metaphor for creative work, for navigating not only the land, but the contours of complex, sometimes just as opaque bureaucratic systems and processes, institutions and publics.

Water-witching for Wanderers (and Wonderers) was commissioned by The City of Calgary Public Art Program.

Learn more on the project website and plan your visit to Quarry Park to find the artworks: http://waterwitching.wordpress.com/

This May and June (2017) I am one of 10 artists-in-residence for the Water Rights residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI) until late June 2017 researching the acequias - communal irrigation canals - in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over the course of the residency I will explore how acequia systems create vital relationships between humans and natural worlds.

Follow me on Instagram to see how my research develops.

A Woman Walking (the City limits) will be presented in a solo exhibition touring various venues through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts |http://www.affta.ab.ca/TREX|TREX|SW program 2017-2019. The exhibition has been curated by Shannon Bingeman and a catalogue is forthcoming.

The exhibition includes 14 photographs, a risograph print and video. To see the work, please visit: http://alanabartol.com/section/437077-A-Woman-Walking-the-City-Limits.html

Please email me at hello@alanabartol.com if you are interested in purchasing any of the works in this series.

My 2006 performance piece "Dressage: 7437 Kisses" will be included in Queer Landscapes: Mapping Queer Space(s) of Praxis and Pedagogy, Edited by Elizabeth McNeil, James Wermers and Oakleaf Lunn (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 2017.

About the Book:
Queer Landscapes seeks to further "queer" scholarship and praxis by bringing together thinkers and activists to explore how we see, write, read, experience, and teach through the fluid space of queerness. We are interested in how queer-identified and -influenced people create ideas, works, classrooms, and other spaces (e.g., digital, activist) that vivify relational and (eco)systems thinking, thus challenging accepted hierarchies, binaries, and hegemonies. Our volume will feature theorist-practitioners who have already made huge strides in helping us to open new landscapes of queer thinking and being, and we also welcome fresh new voices to a community of scholars and activists.

My work is included in the chapter “Queering the Campus Gender Landscape through Visual Arts" by Rosemary Weatherson and Libby Blume, University of Detroit Mercy.

Landscape of Forgetting, a community-engaged walk developed in collaboration with artist Camille Turner (Toronto) has been written about in two publications this year: Looking beyond borderlines : North America's frontier imagination by Lee Rodney (New York; London Routledge) 2017 and the Ontario Arts Council's Framing Community A Community-Engaged Art Workbook.

Check out the links for more information or visit Landscape of Forgetting.

Presented by The Deep Earth Treatment Centre (DETC) Amanda White (Toronto) and Alana Bartol (Calgary) in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Willet (Windsor), Life in the Soil is a 3-day event featuring workshops, talks, performances, and participatory discussions led by artists, activists, farmers, and scholars who are each invested in the scientific, indigenous, embodied and practical knowledge about the vital nature of soils.

March 7-9, 2017 at The School of Creative Arts, University of Windsor

Learn more at: http://lifeinthesoil2017.wordpress.com

The event aims to encourage public engagement and cross-disciplinary dialogue towards deepening our relationship with and understanding of the complexity of living soil and its importance to all life on earth. Participation is free and open to the public.

Thank you Leah Sandals for the Canadian Art online article about my recent project A Woman Walking (the City Limits) developed for MS:T 8 and presented at The New Gallery (Calgary).

Read the article here: canadianart.ca/features/alana-bartol/canadianart.ca/features/alana-bartol

As part of the Inspiring Women Among Us Conference, I will be speaking about the role artists can play in shaping our communities on the Equitable and Just Communities Panel at University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC.

Thursday, November 17th, 5 pm - 6pm
UNBC campus, Building 6 Room 205/211

Speakers include Hilary Morgan, Planner, City of Prince George, Dr. Theresa Healy, School of Environmental Planning, UNBC, and Joan Chess, Program Manager, Smart Planning for Communities, Fraser Basin Council

Organized by Mark W. Groulx, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Planning

For the month of November, I will be an artist-in-residence with |http://neighbourhoodtime.exchange/|Neighbourhood Time Exchange|Downtown Prince George|. Curated by Justin Langlois, Assistant Professor of Social Practice in the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, the program runs from September 2016 and April 2017, inviting a different artist each month to live in Prince George, BC and develop projects in and with the community.

Based on the concept of a time-exchange, for every hour an artist spends in the downtown studio, they contribute an hour of volunteer time working with a Community Partner. My Community Partner will be Downtown Prince George. Check back to learn about the work I develop.

Learn more:
http://neighbourhoodtime.exchange
Facebook

Works from my performance piece A Woman Walking (the City limits) created for M:ST 8 will be presented in a solo exhibition at The New Gallery
Sunday, October 23 – Tuesday, October 25, 2016
12 - 6pm daily

Join me for a reception and discussion with sophia bartholomew at 7:00 PM Monday, October 24, 2016

http://www.thenewgallery.org/a-woman-walking-the-city-limits
http://mstfestival.org/performance/alanabartol/

Photo: Mike Tan

Excited to announce that I was one of three artists selected for The City of Calgary's Open AiR artist residency pilot program.

Fire Hall #6 in the Hillhurst Sunnyside community will be my studio for the next 3 months (August-Sept, 2016). Stay tuned for more information on events and ways to participate in my enfluerage project exploring connections between memory, place, and smell:

www.facebook.com/alana.bartol
www.instagram.com/alanabartol

It is a pleasure to be interviewing Eric & Mia for their upcoming Skateparks project publication! The artists created three projects to coincide with the opening of several new skateparks in Calgary through The City of Calgary's Public Art program: "Skaters from around here and elsewhere" newspaper, Skate School for Women and Skate School for Police.

Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton (Calgary) are award winning interdisciplinary visual artists, facilitators, and community organizers. Working collaboratively since the mid-2000s they bring together elements of craft, performance, printmaking, and cultural geography, to create playful, but highly critical projects. They have presented projects, workshops and lectures in Canada, the United States and Europe. In 2016. they were longlisted for the Sobey Art Award.

Check out their work at: www.ericandmia.ca
Watch the video above to get a sneak peek of the Skate School for Women.

Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts for a project grant to develop a series of performance-based works in response to abandoned oil well sites in Alberta. In Blood and Bone is an ongoing series of works considering alternative ways of knowing, while exploring connections between the health of our bodies and the health of the environment.

Image: Karin McGinn
Video shoot in Three Hills, Alberta

This October, Woman Walking will be presented at The Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival (M:ST) in Calgary.

My work often sees me exploring liminal spaces in urban environments, where urban space meets suburban sprawl. Without sanctioned pathways or access points, we often experience these spaces from a vehicle or public transportation. For this work, I will walk over 174km (108 miles), attempting to walk along the city limits of Calgary.

Where do citizens walk and what parts of the city do they experience on foot? Who is free to move alongside, within, and outside of designated pathways? Who inhabits the space along the city limits? How are the borders inscribed on the land and felt in space?

Works from this series will be presented at The New Gallery in October 2016. Follow my excursions on Instagram and check back for more details soon.

Happy to announce I am a collaborator on a SSHRC Grant. Over the next 5 years, I will be collaborating with Principal Researcher Dr. Jennifer Willet (Associate Professor, University of Windsor) and my collaborator Amanda White (artist and PhD candidate, Queens University), on Bioart: Collaborating with Life, a research/creation project investigating complex collaborations between human artists and other life forms.

Through this grant, Amanda and I will continue our research on the relationships between human bodies and soil. We hope to provide a context for intersection between various artists, scientists, students, community members, and non-human species to share in communication, collaboration, and creative participation in re-imagining our shared future.

I will be speaking on a City of Calgary panel investigating the role of the public in public art on March 4th at the Nickle Gallery in Calgary.

Panelists:
Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra
Poet Laureate derek beaulieu
Alberta College of Art + Design (ACAD) Instructor, Alana Bartol
Independent arts administrator Ciara McKeown

Join us if you can!

Thank you to CLOT Magazine for the interview and write-up about my work. CLOT Magazine is an online publishing platform that aims to collect, display, broadcast and promote the crossover of Art and Science.

Find me in the Scouting section, which features emerging artists:
http://www.clotmag.com/alana-bartol

Excited to announce that my series Inner End will be featured in the December issue of ROOM Magazine.

ROOM Magazine is Canada’s oldest literary journal by and about women. Published quarterly by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, also known as the Growing Room Collective, Room showcases fiction, poetry, reviews, art work, interviews and profiles about the female experience.

Visit their website to see where you can pick up a copy near you:
http://www.roommagazine.com

Thank you to Keagan Perlette of SAD Mag for this wonderful review of my water dowsing workshop in Vancouver at Access Gallery.

Click here to read the review:
http://archive.sadmag.ca/news/author/keagan-perlette/

Thank you to Claire Bailey and Dhrubaa Alamgir for attending my water-witching workshop at Access Gallery last week.

Tune into Lady Radio Friday, Nov 6th at 6pm PST on UBC's Citr to hear them talk about their experience!

Join me on Saturday, Oct 31 from 2-4pm to try your hand at water dowsing (aka water-witching). We will be working with custom-made pendulums, and a variety of dowsing rods.

Space is limited and registration is filling up fast! If you are interested, please contact Access Gallery:

Images and text from my ongoing collaborative work with urban curator Shauna Janssen (Montreal) entitled 'Beyond the Bridge': Postindustrial Border Culture, Communities of Care, and Cats in Sandwich Town is on view from Nov 6 - 21, 2015 at SB Contemporary as part of the exhibition "Stories of the City" organized by INTERMINUS.

INTERMINUS brings together researchers and artists committed to exploring the boundaries between media, arts, science, technologies and the built environment.

Learn more about the exhibition at:
http://sbcontemporaryart.com/
http://interminus.org/news-and-press/stories-of-the-city-exhibition/

More about our project at:
www.alanabartol.com/artwork/curatorialprojects

Excited to announce that the publication for Far Away So Close launches this month! Thank you to Kimberly Phillips and everyone at Access Gallery for making this possible:
Access Gallery - Far Away So Close

Join me and my ACAD colleagues on Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 6pm to hear learn more about what we do in addition to teaching!

I will be speaking about my current research with artist Amanda White (Toronto), current PhD candidate at Queens University in Cultural Studies. The Deep Earth Treatment Centre (DETC) is a collaborative project that explores the relationships between soil and health, bodies and soil habitats, place and identity.

The work for this series is realized under the guise of a ‘treatment centre’ wherein we embark on physical explorations of various soil types. As the DETC, our aim is to produce moments in which participants encounter and engage with soil physically, emotionally, and mentally, expanding notions of life underground, imagining new relationships to, with and within soil habitats.

Read an interview with "There Should Be Gardens" curator Amber Christensen. InterAccess’s Emerging Artists Exhibition featuring my work!

http://www.creativeapplications.net/events/abstract-ecologies-a-conversation-with-amber-christensen/

There Should Be Gardens at InterAccess (Toronto)
Sept 2 - 26, 2015
Opening reception: Wed. Sept. 2, 7-9pm
Alana Bartol
Adrienne Crossman
Anna Eyler
Kara Stone
Alize Zorlutuna
Curated by Amber Christensen

Far Away So Close: Part III Access Gallery (Vancouver)
Sept. 12 – Oct. 31, 2015
Opening reception: Fri, Sept. 11, 7pm
Alana Bartol
Mike Bourscheid
David Semeniuk
Curated by Kimberley Phillips
Please join me at Access Gallery in Vancouver for In Conversation: Alana Bartol & David Semeniuk with Kimberly Phillips on Saturday, Sept 12th at 2pm.

Faculty Exhibition 2015, Illingworth Kerr Gallery (Calgary)
Alberta College of Art + Design
Sept. 10 - Oct. 3, 2015
Opening reception: Thurs. Sept. 17, 5-7pm

Image: Anna Eyler, Fugue in Three Steps (2015)

Happy to announce that my work will be included in the 14th Annual Emerging Artists Exhibition InterAccess There Should Be Gardens, at Inter/Access Gallery in Toronto. Curated by Amber Christensen, the exhibition runs from September 2nd to September 26th, 2015 and features work by:
Alana Bartol
Adrienne Crossman
Anna Eyler
Kara Stone
Alize Zorlutuna

Read an interview with the curator here.

Opening reception: Wednesday, September 2, 2015, 7-9pm at InterAccess.

There Should Be Gardens
curated by Amber Christensen
September 2-26, 2015

Opening reception: Wednesday, September 2, 2015, 7-9pm at InterAccess.

In its 14th year, the InterAccess Emerging Artists Exhibition features new media work from local and national early career artists, artists transitioning to new media/technology practices and upper year post-secondary and graduate students. InterAccess is a leading voice on the international new media arts stage and this exhibition offers artists a platform for early professional development. Former participating artists and curators have gone on to work and exhibit at such institutions as the Doris McCarthy Gallery, The Walter Phillips Gallery, Western Front, Trinity Square Video, Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art, Space Media Arts in London UK, FACT, Liverpool, and Transmediale in Berlin.

The 2015 selected curator is Amber Christensen, a researcher and curator who studies feminist/queer curatorial and media arts practices. She has recently curated film/video for Vtape and Neutral Ground and is a member of the Pleasure Dome Film and Video Curatorial Collective, and an organizer with the Feminist Art Conference. This exhibition was curated based on over 90 submissions received through an open call for submissions.

There Should Be Gardens brings together five Canadian emerging and early career new media artists whose work addresses the interconnectedness of technologies, ecologies, botanies, gender and the cosmos. The exhibition explores the materiality and affectivity of matter, blurring the focus of feminism and queer feminism between the human and non-human. Featuring Alana Bartol (Calgary), Adrienne Crossman (Toronto), Anna Eyler (Ottawa/Montreal), Kara Stone (Montreal), and Alize Zorlutuna (Toronto).

My collaborative project Landscape of Forgetting, with Camille Turner will be featured in the forthcoming publication Looking Beyond Borderlines: North America’s Frontier Imagination (Routledge, 2015) by Lee Rodney. The project will also be included in the Ontario Arts Council's online publication on Community Arts practice.

This June I will be a featured discussant on new media plant art on the online platform empyre. The discussion will be moderated by Natasha Myers (York), Selmin Kara (OCAD) and Patrick Kielty (UofT).

empyre facilitates online discussion encouraging critical perspectives on contemporary cross-disciplinary issues, practices and events in networked media. With over 1,800 members, the list is currently co-managed by Renate Ferro (Cornell) and Tim Murray (Cornell), with the moderating team of Selmin Kara (OCAD) and Patrick Kielty (UofT).

More information can be found here: http://empyre.library.cornell.edu.

Image: CBC News, artist Robert Hengeveld discussing his work in the Bioart exhibition

Bioart: Collaborating with Life is generating a lot of interest in Ottawa and beyond. Check out the press below:

Abna, Sandra. “Living Art in Ottawa: Bio art on display at Karsh-Masson Gallery at City Hall is made with living things”, CBC News, Television. 27 Apr 2015.

Calcagno, Leonardo. "BioART: Collaborating with Life" Baron Mag, 3 May 2015. Web.

Miller, Jacquie. "Ontario Scene: Five cool things to see on the Art Gallery crawl" Ottawa Citizen, 27 Apr 2015. Web.

Simpson, Peter. “Big Beat: Ontario Scene gallery crawl is packed with art.” Ottawa Citizen, 1 May 2015. Web.

Image: Alana Bartol, Un-camouflaging #7, (2012-ongoing) Performance, Windsor, ON Photo: Arturo Herrera

Works from the Forms of Awareness series are included in BioART: Collaborating with Life at the Karsh Masson Gallery in Ottawa. On May 3rd I will be performing Forms of Awareness: Ghillie Suit as part of the Gallery Crawl.

Curated by Jennifer Willet, the exhibition is part of the Ontario Scene and presented by Artengine, the City of Ottawa and the National Arts Centre. Supported by the Ontario Arts Council.

April 28-May 31, 2015

Artists
Karen Miranda Abel
Alana Bartol
Philip Beesley
Robert Hengeveld
Andrew Pelling
Johl Ringuette
Jennifer Willet

A big thank you to The City of Windsor for awarding an Arts, Culture and Heritage grant to my collaborative project with Shauna Janssen (Montreal) exploring the histories, sites and stories of the Sandwich Town community in Windsor, Ontario.

Learn more about our project at:

www.alanabartol.com/artwork/curatorialprojects

On Friday, May 1st from 1:30-3:30pm I will be speaking about my work at the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa as part of the Inter-Arts Ontario Forum.

Honoured to be included on this panel of incredible artists:
Dwayne Dixon and Judi Lopez of Manifesto
Penny Couchie of Aanmitaagzi
Robert Hengeveld

Learn more about the panel on the Canada Council for the Arts website.

Image: Mike Bourscheid, Dominique Baum's Journey (2012)

This fall, my work will be included in Far Away So Close: Part III, a 3 person exhibition curated by Kimberly Phillips at Access Gallery (Vancouver).

Learn more about the exhibition series and publication set:

http://accessgallery.ca/upcoming/far-away-so-close-part-iii/

At this year's Association for Literature and the Environment Conference, I will be speaking about my collaborative project with artist Amanda White (Toronto) exploring relationships between human bodies and soil at the 2015 Association for Literature and the Environment Conference, Notes from Underground: The Depths of Environmental Arts, Culture and Justice at the University of Idaho.

Works from the series can be viewed here.

This summer I will return to Boston, MA to continue my self-directed bioart residency made possible with support from the Ontario Arts Council.

My residency began last summer when I learned various scientific techniques and methods in the George Church Lab at Harvard with mentor Joe Davis, artist and researcher at the George Church Lab at Harvard and Department of Biology at MIT. Davis was developing “Malus ecclesia”, a genetic art project that will place 50,000 of the most popular Wikipedia pages into the DNA of a strain of ancient apple tress, creating a genetically modified "Tree of Knowledge".

Learn more about his project here.

As I continue to develop several projects exploring connections to human health and the environment, I will be conducting research at the The Vail Collection which contains important works on animal magnetism and mesmerism, including William Davey’s The Illustrated Practical Mesmerist.

Tune in to Calgary's CJSW Radio, to hear me on The Charmer's Almanac with Matt and Kate today. We will discuss dowsing and dreaming during the 6 week Food Water Life residency at The Banff Centre.

Image: Life in the Soil, 2015, Video Still from 5 min animation
The Deep Earth Treatment Centre

Come and see what the Food Water Life and Bair artists-in-residence have been up to today at The Banff Centre.

Works from The Deep Earth Treatment Centre, a collaborative project with Amanda White (Toronto) will be on display as well as my new work on water dowsing.

Look for my essay on labour in community-engaged art practice in the upcoming Neighbourhood Spaces online publication.

Neighbourhood Spaces was one of the first socially-engaged residency programs in Canada initiated by Arts Council Windsor & Region, The City of Windsor and Broken City Lab. http://acwr.net/ns.

Check back soon!

Happy to announce that I will be participating in Food Water Life, the 2015 winter thematic residency with artists Lucy + Jorge Orta.

Faculty: Lucy Orta - Lead Artist, Jorge Orta - Lead Artist
Guests: Nigel Prince - Guest Curator, David Bickerstaff - Guest, Pohanna Feinberg - Guest

Artist Food Water Life is a project spanning close to two decades of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s collaborative work. Drawing on these themes, the Food Water Life residency invites participants to explore concerns that define the twenty-first century - biodiversity, environmental sustainability, social economy, human rights - and through artistic practice envision a world of tomorrow.

Thank you to Reena Katz and Alize Zorlutuna for all of their hard work putting this amazing exhibition and performance series together. I am honoured to be participating with my collaborators from the Community Arts Guild: Tomås Cavalheiro-Chin, Dillon Cox, Karis Jones-Pard, Stephanie Kroone, and Kaitlynn Rodgers. Big thanks to my assistant facilitator Andrea Thring, as well as Sonya Rainey, Beth Helmers, and everyone else that made this project possible.

Participating artists, collectives and partners include: Alana Bartol and the Community Arts Guild, Alize Zorlutuna, Annie Onyi-Cheung, Bonnie Devine, Brendan Fernandes, Camille Turner, Camal Pirbhai, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Elise Rasmussen, Jamelie Hassan, KAPWA Collective, Victoria Freeman, First Story Toronto Bus Tour.

Visit the exhibition website to learn more about the projects:
http://restlessprecinct.ca/

Excited to be participating in TOXICITY with an amazing line-up of artists.

TOXICITY is a project of Video Pool Media Arts Centre in partnership with INCUBATOR: Hybrid Laboratory at the Intersection of Art, Science and Ecology Co-presented by Plug In ICA

Opened December 6, 2013, Plug In ICA

Trish Adams (Brisbane, Australia), Alana Bartol (Windsor), CAE (Buffalo, USA), Joe Davis (Cambridge, MA, USA), Tangny Duff (Montreal), Aganetha Dyck (Winnipeg), Ted Heibert (Seattle, USA), Natalie Jeremijenko (NY, USA), David Khang (Vancouver), Andrew E Pelling (Ottawa), Niki Sperou (Adelaide, Australia) Reva Stone (Winnipeg), Amanda White (Toronto), Elaine Whittaker (Toronto), Jennifer Willet (Windsor) with Jeanette Groenendaal and Zoot Derks (Amsterdam, Holland).

Learn more on the exhibition website:
http://www.toxicitywinnipeg.com/exhibition/