Melanie Cossey

Painter-Writer-Editor

I am happy to participate in the Twitter/Art + Social Media Show taking place at the Diane Farris Gallery in Vancouver.

Here are the details

Exhibition: April 1 – May 1, 2010

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 1, 6 – 8 pm

Diane Farris Gallery is pleased to present Twitter/Art+Social Media, a juried exhibition of work by artists using social media for inspiration, production and presentation of their work. The exhibition concept evolved from an original idea by Mia Johnson who has a PhD on the emergence of the Internet as a vehicle for artists and has been responsible for the gallery’s website since 2004.

As an early adopter of the Internet, Diane Farris Gallery has been interested in its possibilities since the creation of the gallery website in 1996, when less than 1% of the world population was online. Through Twitter/Art+Social Media, the gallery examines how social media is affecting the practice of artists who use it to share feedback and promote their artwork, organize shows and produce art collaboratively.

With 80 – 100 artworks by over 40 artists from across Canada and abroad, Twitter/Art+Social Media showcases a broad spectrum of influences of social media. While some artists draw their subject matter or medium from social media, others are working in more traditional forms and using social media to promote and display their work. The result is an exhibition that brings together works as diverse as painting, photography, video and sound to show how the artist’s practices are shifting.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a forum on art and social media on Diane Farris Gallery’s newly launched blog, www.dianefarrisgallery.com/blog. The blog will also feature various web-based artworks through out the duration of the exhibition. The gallery will use the blog, Facebook and Twitter to announce performances and events in and around the gallery.

About the show, curator Lili Vieira de Carvalho states:

“We are very excited about this project. The involvement of Vancouver’s artists with social media came very clear to me during the protests against the cuts for arts in BC last summer. Artists got organized through Facebook and Twitter to get together and share ideas. That has been a big leap from the old view of artists being isolated in their studios. Now they share working spaces, organize exhibitions, and get feedback and ideas – with social media being a huge facilitator.”

The artworks in the show were selected by a multidisciplinary committee from submissions to the gallery’s open call during February. The selection committee was composed of Lili Vieira de Carvalho, curator of the show and Associate Director at Diane Farris Gallery; Kris Krug, photographer and web strategist; Dr. Maria Lantin, Director of the Intersections Digital Studios (IDS) research centre at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design; and Hank Bull, the Executive Director at Centre A.

The gallery hopes this exhibition will become a catalyst for other groups and institutions to further explore the topic.

Visit the following links to learn more and to see my work

http://www.dianefarrisgallery.com/blog/?page_id=363

http://www2.canada.com/vancouvercourier/news/artsandentertainment/story.html?id=fb0201b7-2545-45f0-b9b5-e18ef00de615#ixzz0jOs0kNpQ

http://vancouverisawesome.com/2010/03/29/twitter-art/