A multi-media Langley-based artist, researcher, and a former dance student is combining her passions together in an exhibit focussed on the floor, a showing currently on display in Fort Langley.
Korean-Canadian artist Sora Park presents her exhibit, To Glide, To Say Bye, which opened this past weekend at the Fort Gallery.
Responding particularly to the Fort Gallery’s architecture, Park created an “immersive experience” where she invites viewers to notice the floor beneath their feet and consider the stories and emotional content it holds.
Working primarily in sculpture and installation, Park translates years of quantitative and qualitative data from her research into Latin dancing, into colourful, abstract sculptural forms.
Merging organic and geometric forms, she says her sculptures speak to the complex negotiations of bodies and built environments.
Park’s artistic practice is deeply involved in the investigation of subcultures and particularly, the ways that globalization and migration create and perpetuate these subcultures, she explained.
In her exhibition at the Fort Gallery, Park turns what she describes as an ethnographic lens on Latin dancing subcultures.
Moving Throughlines: Sora Park from Seymour Art Gallery on Vimeo.
Last fall, for instance, she hosted another exhibition at the Seymour Art Gallery in North Vancouver, called Moving Throughlines. It looked at the impact globalization and migration have on the creation and sustainability of various subcultures around the world.
Now, she’s delving further with her new exhibition.
After four years of immersive study in Latin dance around the world, Park decided to quit. But, when she reminisces about Latin dancing, she sees herself “stepping onto a nicely waxed hardwood floor for a Bachata lesson in downtown Vancouver.”
It is this floor, and the many others that she has danced on through the years, that form the impetus for her newest body of work.
Through this exhibition, Park considers the “emotions, identity, and social hierarchies” embedded in built environments, she explained.
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This show – To Glide, To Say Bye – opened Friday, May 28 and runs until July 4 at the Fort Gallery.
The local exhibition includes a virtual Philosopher’s Cafe this Thursday, June 3, from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m.
It will feature the artist, Park, in conversation with contemporary dancer/choreographer Katie Cassady. Their conversation will explore perspectives on dance, the built environment, and respective relationships to dance floors.
As well, people are welcome to a socially distanced – meet the artist – event at the gallery, Saturday, June 19, from noon to 5 p.m. Both events are free but require registration online at fortgallery.ca.
The gallery, located at , 9048 Glover Rd, is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.
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