Gabriola artist Anne Ramsden will be discussing her career and body of work at VIU on March 5 as part of the school’s Visiting Artist and Designer Series.
Ramsden will talk about what it was like starting out as an artist and the kinds of opportunities that exist. She said when students are in art school, “you wonder what’s out there.” After she graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Ramsden co-founded Artexte, a Montreal-based artist-run art documentation and research centre that still operates today.
“I realize that was a long time ago and things have changed a lot, but in some ways they haven’t for young artists. They have and they haven’t,” Ramsden said. “I think the market has changed a lot and the art world has changed a lot but as a young artist, you still have to just go out there and do it.”
Ramsden will also discuss recurring themes in her work, particularly ideas around museums and preservation, as well as the collecting and accumulation of objects. Recently, she’s also become interested in the idea of the “living museum,” as her last installation was a video projection filmed in an arboretum.
“I’m interested in, with this work right now, environmental concerns and how those might be reflected in our culture in ways that are not up-front evident or more embedded in the sites of preservation that we create,” she said.
Ramsden moved to Gabriola around three years ago after retiring from a 20-year teaching career at University of Quebec at Montreal. She said she wanted to return to the West Coast, having previously taught at Simon Fraser University, but live in a more rural setting.
“It happened in a happenstance kind of way, and then I find myself living in just an unexpectedly beautiful environment…” Ramsden said. “Living on Gabriola, or even living on Vancouver Island, you’re much closer to nature or the environment. So that’s been a wonderful discovery for me.”
WHAT’S ON … Anne Ramsden artist talk at VIU Bldg. 355 Rm. 203 on Thursday, March 5 at 4:30 p.m. Free admission, open to all.
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