Maureen Gruben

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Please join us for a talk at the gallery between artist Maureen Gruben and curator Godfre Leung on the occasion of Gruben's exhibition *The land that used to be*.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is required. Secure your place [here](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/in-conversation-maureen-gruben-godfre-leung-tickets-800175184517?aff=oddtdtcreator).

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### Biography
Maureen Gruben’s diverse multi-media practice incorporates organic and industrial materials that are frequently found or salvaged. She was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk, where her parents were traditional Inuvialuk knowledge keepers and founders of E. Gruben’s Transport. Gruben holds a BFA from the University of Victoria and a Certificate in Indigenous Political Development & Leadership, En’owkin Centre, Penticton. Recent exhibitions include presentations at Museu de Arte de São Paulo; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; National Nordic Museum, Seattle; and Women’s Gallery & Darkroom, New York. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award and longlisted for the 2019 Aesthetica Art Prize and the 2021 Sobey Art Award. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Indigenous Art Centre, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

thumbnail_Mauren Gruben Bio Photo - image credit Kyra Kordoski  .jpg

Mauren Gruben Bio Photo - image credit Kyra Kordoski  .jpg

Maureen Gruben & Godfre Leung

In Conversation

Please join us to celebrate CAG's winter 2024 exhibitions, *Diane Severin Nguyen: If I hadn’t created my own world, I would have died in someone else’s* and *Maureen Gruben: The land that used to be*.

All ages welcome. Cash bar.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

thumbnail_10 DIane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

10 DIane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Winter 2024

Opening Reception

Land is fundamental to the work of Tuktoyaktuk-based artist Maureen Gruben. Often drawing on the intimacy of the handmade, Gruben’s work balances the vastness of tundra with the scales at which its inhabitants live with it. Engaging traditional materials, techniques and knowledge alongside the detritus of modern life, Gruben places global ecological crisis in conversation with local Inuvialuit ingenuity, exploring the persistence of this ingenuity from past to present to future. 

*The land that used to be* features the new installation *Qikuryuaq (Clay Hills)*, comprised of approximately 1,000 clay beads prepared by Gruben with the help of family and community members. The number of beads corresponds to Tuktoyaktuk’s population, while the clay they are made from, sourced from nearby shores, alludes to the material erosion of its shorelines, which has reached a state of emergency and within thirty years will necessitate the relocation of Tuktoyaktuk’s community inland. *Qikuryuaq* is accompanied in the exhibition by two works depicting handmade sleds. These sleds have an intimate relationship to land, touching its contours as they effect passage. As they evoke movement across and around the territory, including the potential inland migration, they also echo the aspiration of *Qikuryuaq* to, in the artist’s words, “hold the land a little bit longer before it is gone.”

#### Biography
Maureen Gruben’s diverse multi-media practice incorporates organic and industrial materials that are frequently found or salvaged. She was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk, where her parents were traditional Inuvialuk knowledge keepers and founders of E. Gruben’s Transport. Gruben holds a BFA from the University of Victoria and a Certificate in Indigenous Political Development & Leadership, En’owkin Centre, Penticton. Recent exhibitions include presentations at Museu de Arte de São Paulo; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; National Nordic Museum, Seattle; and Women’s Gallery & Darkroom, New York. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award and longlisted for the 2019 Aesthetica Art Prize and the 2021 Sobey Art Award. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Indigenous Art Centre, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

CAG - Maureen Gruben - Exhibition Guide - Regular Print - FINAL.pdf

CAG - Maureen Gruben - Exhibition Guide - Large Print - FINAL.pdf

Maureen Gruben at Qikuryuaq, Husky Lakes.

thumbnail_Quikuryuaq.jpg

Quikuryuaq.jpg

A thousand small clay beads are pinned across two walls in an amorphous shape, with most of the beads displayed on the left wall. In the foreground is a sculpture of a child's sled on a plinth.

thumbnail_01 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

01 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

A sculpture of a child's sled sits on a plinth. The sled is covered in textured clay and coated in bronze.

thumbnail_02 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

02 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

A photograph of fourteen sleds of various shapes and colours arranged upright on a body of ice. 

thumbnail_03 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

03 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

A wide view of a room with a bronze sled on a plinth in the foreground. In the background are a photograph of fourteen sleds and a sculpture, made of a thousand small clay beads pinned to the wall. 

thumbnail_04 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

04 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

A thousand small clay beads of various colours are pinned across two white walls in the corner of a room. The beads are arranged in an amorphous shape with the majority of the beads on the left wall.

thumbnail_05 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

05 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

Hundreds of small clay beads of various colours are pinned to a white wall with varying distances between each bead.

thumbnail_06 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

06 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

Detail of nine clay beads in orange and grey tones pinned to a white wall.

thumbnail_07 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

07 Maureen Gruben 2024.jpg

The land that used to be

The present book details the work of Maureen Gruben and features photos from the exhibition *QULLIQ: In Darkness, Light* at Libby Leshgold Gallery from February 2 to April 22, 2018. Includes texts by Kyra Kordoski, Tarah Hogue, Tania Willard, and Cate Rimmer.





Maureen Gruben

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