Artist Talk: Lou Sheppard

Free Admission

Access is pleased to host interdisciplinary visual artist Lou Sheppard (Halifax, Nova Scotia), the second recipient of the Emerging Atlantic Canada Artist Residency. This cross-country tour is hosted by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Hnatyshyn Foundation.

During an eight-week residency at Banff Centre in 2017, Sheppard developed a new work titled Requiem for the Polar Regions; an aural exploration of shifting ice masses of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Learn more about Lou Sheppard’s artistic practice when they speak on Tuesday, March 27th at Access!

Full details of the tour can be found here.

Lou Sheppard is Canadian artist working in video, audio and installation practices. Of settler ancestry, Sheppard was raised on unceded Mi'kmaq territory, and currently lives in K'jiputuk (Halifax.) A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, their work has been exhibited both in Canada and internationally and was included in the Antarctic Biennale and the Antarctic Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennial. In 2017 Sheppard was selected for the Emerging Atlantic Artist Award by the Hnatyshyn Foundation to complete a program that composes music based on concentrations of sea ice. Sheppard’s current project, a choreographic translation of the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria, is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts. Sheppard recently completed a residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris in 2017, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, and will be an artist in residence at the Khyber in Nova Scotia and the Doris McCarthy AIR in Toronto in the spring of 2018.

Image Credit: Lou Sheppard during the Antarctic Biennale residency. Photo by Lisen Shultz.

With gratitude as guests, Access Gallery is located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Founded in 1991, Access Gallery is an artist-run centre with a mission to create conditions of emergence for provocative ideas and work in the visual arts. We enable critical conversations and risk-taking through new configurations of artists, audience, and community. The organization searches out opportunities to experiment through collaborations (both local and international) that encourage innovation. We aim to bring visibility and critical reception to artists and cultural practitioners when they need it most, often at moments early in their practices, and have offered important exhibition opportunities to many of Canada’s most recognized contemporary artists. Access Gallery is a long-standing member of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres.

Access gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, BC Gaming, and the Collaborative Spaces Program, the City of Vancouver, and our committed donors, members, and volunteers.