A New Path to the Waterfall

Gabi Dao

Harrell Fletcher

Join CAG and artists at Lord Strathcona Elementary for the launch of the limited-edition volume *A New Path to the Waterfall*, celebrating the year-long collaborative art project between local artists and students from MaryAnn Persoon’s 2017-18 grade 6/7 class. A special screening of an experimental film created by this year’s class with artist Gabi Dao will accompany the launch.

thumbnail_A-New-Path-2-1840x1840.jpeg

A-New-Path-2-1840x1840.jpeg

Publication Launch

Over the course of the 2017-18 school year *A New Path to the Waterfall* was a collaborative art project that situated a CAG satellite gallery space within MaryAnn Persoon’s grade 6/7 class at Lord Strathcona Elementary School.

In 2015 the Contemporary Art Gallery invited Portland-based artist Harrell Fletcher for a residency at our Burrard Marina Field House. Growing out of that period of research, Fletcher proposed a yearlong project in a classroom connected to issues and topics in the school curriculum. The project was conceived to open up new ways for the students to engage with art and the wider world while re-shaping the ways in which we consider contemporary art, gallery spaces and public schools.

Within *A New Path to the Waterfall*, MaryAnn Persoon’s grade 6/7 class engaged in five projects created and led by six Vancouver-based artists; Justine A. Chambers, Elisa Ferrari, Hannah Jickling, Carmen Papalia, Helen Reed, and T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss.

The students were encouraged to take creative risks and experiment with different ways of making to investigate local ecosystems and issues surrounding accessibility, inclusion, power structures and taste and consumption across all sensorial experiences. Aspects of each project in A New Path to the Waterfall were presented to the public through exhibitions, interventions, performances and public programming at six week intervals onsite at the school and in the surrounding Strathcona neighbourhood.

A limited edition publication of six printed pieces by each of the artists and students will be available for purchase in CAG's Book Shop.

*A New Path to the Waterfall* was generously supported by the Vancouver Park Board, the City of Vancouver, The Vancouver Foundation, TELUS Community Board, the Hamber Foundation and Artstarts/Artists in the Classroom.

Two smiling children in a classroom looking at a handmade herbarium book. Other herbarium books surround them on the table.   

Publication Launch

Talks & Events