The Gibson Art Museum at SFU Opens This Month
Simon Fraser University will open the landmark Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum (The Gibson) on September 20th showcasing 15 critically acclaimed Canadian artists in its inaugural exhibition, including several commissions.
Design & Location | Opening Weekend | Inaugural Exhibition
The Gibson Art Museum at SFU
This is the first purpose-built art museum that consolidates what was previously known as SFU Galleries. Featuring an award-winning design by Siamak Hariri, founding partner of Toronto-based Hariri Pontarini Architects, in partnership with Vancouver-based Iredale Architecture, the 12,100-square-foot museum is defined by its unique polygonal form and expansive windows that draw in the natural landscape and foster a sense of openness.
Design and Location
The Gibson’s architectural and design details all highlight this sense of flow and warmth, including the craftsmanship of its intricate brick work and the decision to have two entrances into the building: one facing the SFU Transit Exchange (main bus loop) and the other toward the campus that allow visitors to explore seamlessly.
The structure is made from BC-sourced mass timber beams that distinguish the 15-foot-high ceilings. The building is fully electric and LEED Gold certified. Flexible programming spaces feature areas with long tables for farmhouse style seating and a central hearth that will serve as the home of a new site-specific, semi-permanent installation by Cindy Mochizuki.
Inaugural Exhibition
The inaugural exhibition is titled Edge Effects, a reference to the ecological term “edge effect,” which describes the conditions created where two adjacent ecological communities meet, such as an estuary between a river and the ocean. This results in a rich and complex co-existence between species that would otherwise never have the chance to interact. In this vein, the museum explores its position at the boundary of academia and the public, and the participating artists of the inaugural exhibition consider edges in their practices that challenge disciplinary, material, and historical boundaries.
Edge Effects features a combination of new commissioned works and projects never before seen by audiences in Canada, such as:
- Liz Magor’s still poignant Blue Students/Alumnos en azul (1997).
- Cindy Mochizuki’s Arboreal Time is a constellation of more than 40 miniature and medium-sized hand-built porcelain sculptures and yakisugi (preserved charred wood) pine elements that chart a forest of kodama, or tree spirits, mounted above the central hearth and fireplace wall at the Gibson.
- Lorna Brown will present a major project about easements in Vancouver that has been over a decade in the making, featuring a large-scale wall drawing, soft sculptures, and sound work.
- Elisa Ferrari is working with SFU’s archive, creating sonic collages that query mythologies about the university’s early turbulent days using voice recordings of past administrators, faculty, and students.
- Sameer Farooq and poet Jared Stanley reconsider the storage spaces of SFU’s Archaeology and Ethnology Museum as a “loom” that catches and holds objects and belongings from vastly different times and places.
- And Pietro Sammarco, with Liz Toohey-Wiese and Helena Krobath, worked with University Highlands Elementary students over eight weeks to create sound compositions and paintings that explored the path of rainwater down Burnaby Mountain.
Additional artists in Edge Effects are: Justine A. Chambers, Patrick Cruz, Lucien Durey, Germaine Koh, Debra Sparrow, and Jin-me Yoon, as well as several works from the SFU Art Collection. Many of the featured artists have close ties with SFU, as alumni, current students, faculty, and visiting fellows.
Opening Weekend Events
The Gibson will open to the public with a family-friendly program on Saturday, September 20th from 2:00pm to 5:00pm.
Following welcoming remarks, there will be a performance by Lucien Durey, an art studio with kids’ activities, light snacks and refreshments.
On Sunday, September 21st the museum will host an artist talk with Patrick Cruz, Sameer Farooq and Jared Stanley at 2:00pm. Additional programs will be announced closer to the fall, including a clay kodama-making workshop with Cindy Mochizuki, a newly commissioned dance performance by Justine A. Chambers, a Coast Salish weaving workshop, a sound performance with Elisa Ferrari, and the launch of the inaugural exhibition’s publication Holdfast: On Creating the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum this winter.
The Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum‘s mission is to encourage open and inclusive learning about our past, current, and future worlds—including crucial considerations of the west coast region—by supporting the work of critically engaged and research-driven visual artists. Echoing the building’s open and informal design that strives to put accessibility first, the Gibson’s staff team is committed to creating a space where complex and challenging ideas can be encountered inclusively.
