Amalie Atkins

Amalie Atkins: We Live on the Edge of Disaster and Imagine We Are in a Musical

Opening Reception: Friday January 31, 2014 | Free Admission
Artist Walkthrough: Saturday February 1, 2014, 2 pm | Free Admission.

February 1 to June 14, 2014

This touring exhibition, co-organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, builds on Amalie Atkin’s recent residency at Open Space in Victoria with the first major solo presentation of her work. A Saskatoon artist with a growing reputation for her films and video installations, Atkins cinematic gifts have been recognized recently in national and international survey exhibitions (Oh, Canada, Dreamland: Textiles and the Canadian Landscape, Mind the Gap!). This exhibition will highlight the expansion of her practice into installation by featuring pavilions housing her two most widely seen works, Three Minute Miracle (2008) and Scenes from a Secret World (2009), along with projection-installations based on a major new film: We Live on the Edge of Disaster and Imagine We Are in a Musical.

Set against the luminous landscapes of southern and central Saskatchewan, Atkins’ multi-layered narratives present bittersweet sagas of grief, joy and transformation that linger in the memory like half-remembered fairy tales. Characters in the guise of wolves, bears, crows or other creatures populate her imaginative worlds and engage with human protagonists, enacting scenarios that are both everyday and otherworldly. With, We Live on the Edge of Disaster and Imagine We Are in a Musical, Atkins introduces an all female cast of characters which includes, among others, two-headed sisters, a troupe of roller-skating Valkyries, braid harvesters, and the ever ominous Krankenschwester. With a background in textiles from the Alberta College of Art and Design, Atkins’ films have an immediate tactile appeal, which is manifest in the handmade fabric costumes and props, as well as in the felt pavilions which she has created to house her projections.

Images: Stills from Amalie Atkins, We Live on the Edge of Disaster and Imagine We Are in a Musical (2013)

Top image: Two Headed Sister Lying in a Ditch