Private Perimeter

Artist Rebecca Belmore is returning to Sudbury to create a new work inspired by the city’s natural surroundings. During her September 2012 research residency, Belmore spent time tracing the roads that skirt the edges of Sudbury—the borderlands in and around the city. In May she will create a work that will consider the lines between the city, the mine, and the reserve.

“Whether a vigil for missing women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside or a photograph of a deep scar, healed and adorned with beads, [Belmore’s work] is imbued with ritual that plays out on the body, on the land and in the elements.” ¹

During the first week of her residency, Belmore will return to explore the territory within and beyond the city with Émilio Portal, an artist based in Sudbury and Toronto. They will produce video, audio, and photographic records of their fieldwork together. From these explorations Belmore will select a site and develop a concept and plan for her project. She will then create a private performance-based work, which will be documented and shared with the public in an exhibition opening May 15^th, 2013 at La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario. Belmore’s experimental approach will draw a conceptual line through the amalgamated communities that make up Greater Sudbury, the mining territories bordering the city, and the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek (Whitefish Lake) First Nation Reserve.

[1] Canada Council for the Arts, Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, online. (Page consulted on April 26, 2013)