An undergraduate student exhibition by artist collective [UN]PROMPTU
from April 23rd - April 28th at Galerie Jano Lapin.
A group of twelve undergraduate Fine Arts students from Concordia University, spanning a wide range of artistic practices, have been brought together to showcase their work in the exhibition Ritual Transfiguration.
For thousands of years, artists have represented figures from mythology, in countless media, and in countless ways. In fact, it can be argued that art has been a necessary element in the proliferation of myth, and has informed the way these fundamental stories have been told and retold over time. But how are these stories being retold today, and what is their significance? The concept for this exhibition began with that question, which is addressed in the introduction to The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. In it, Bill Moyers states that many hold the familiar modern opinion that ‘all these Greek gods and stuff’ are irrelevant to the contemporary human condition, but that what most do not know is that “all the remnants of all that ‘stuff’ line the walls of our interior system of belief, like shards of broken pottery in an archaeological site.” (Moyers, 1991). These myths are at the foundation of our society, influencing our collective unconscious while revealing universally identifiable characters in the form of archetypes. Importantly, these archetypes are not exclusive to Greek gods. They can be found throughout myth and folklore from around the world, spanning eras and regions that would not have been able to communicate with one another, highlighting an inherent quality within all of us that dreams, ponders, and questions.
The hero, the mother, the trickster, the lover; these figures appear time and time again in mythologies across our planet, often shaped by their artistic representations. Not only are myths ways to understand ourselves and our collective unconscious, but they can also be tools for cultural survival and connection. Myths can serve as powerful ways to preserve and pass down cultural knowledge, preserving traditions of oral storytelling and cultural artistic production. Myths have also been the site of reappropriation and interpretation, pulling from our collective unconscious and unearthing problematic truths that may have upheld or preserved the status quo—Cixous’ Raft of the Medusa and Hill Collins’ Myth of the Natural Mother come to mind here.
In sum, this exhibition is an argument for the reexamination of myth through artistic means, as a beacon of hope and a tool for connection, collaboration, and finding similarities in one another. It is an invitation for artists to reexamine their works and find the shards of myth laden in them, so that they may be brought to light.