Public Programs 2007

2012 · 2011 · 2010 · 2009 · 2008 · 2007 · 2006

If you would like to book a visit for your school or community group or want more
information on youth workshops please contact us at 403.762.6281 or walter_phillipsgallery@banffcentre.ca

Whether you call it sprawl or growth, the suburbs have been the dominant form of community planning in North America for 50 years. Recent surges in development in regions including Alberta have refuelled debates about responsible urban planning. In an incisive study, Canadian filmmakers Gary Burns and Jim Brown recently peered into the windows — and lives — of those who call suburbia home with their 2007 documentary Radiant City. Join the Walter Phillips Gallery for a special screening of Radiant City followed by a lively public discussion featuring Gary Burns and Graham Livesey, a University of Calgary architecture professor and expert on the contemporary city. Following the panel, the conversation will continue with a public reception in the nearby Max Bell Lounge.

Join Sarah Adams-Bacon, Robin Arseneault, and Kay Burns, three of the 22 artists featured in the 2007 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, as they discuss their work in light of this year’s theme of Utopia and Disaster.

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Hamish Fulton has exhibited throughout the world for more than 30 years. Since the early 1970s, he has been labelled as a sculptor, photographer, conceptual artist and land artist. Fulton, however, characterizes himself as a walking artist.

The act of walking has remained central to his practice for several decades. He has stated “If I do not walk, I cannot make a work of art” and has summed up this way of thinking in the simple statement of intent: “no walk, no work.” He has walked thousands of miles in five continents, documenting his experiences — or the essence of them — through photographs, objects, text installations, and books. Hamish lives in Coventry, England. He works in England and abroad.

As a result of a once-in–ten-year coincidence, major exhibitions of contemporary visual art, taking place every two, five, and ten years respectively, have opened one after another in June 2007. Sylvie Gilbert, Senior Curator at the Walter Phillips Gallery will present her reviews of current major exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe, including the 52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, the Prague Biennial, documenta 12, and skulptur projekte münster 07.

Using chocolate covered graham crackers as an architectural building material, this all-ages workshop promises a gooey good time! Participants will draw on their own diverse geographies to create a uniquely cross-cultural monument, while the melting material will present a fun challenge. Through collaborative building processes we will stretch traditional perceptions of our built environments. Part of the Banff Culture Weekend.

This one-hour tour of the public art works at The Banff Centre criss-crosses the campus and includes works by John McEwan, Hugh LeRoy, and Peter von Tiesenhausen among others.

Drawing inspiration from the Informal Architectures exhibition, this workshop will tap the imagination, seeking alternatives to traditional living and leisure spaces. Children will create a utopian interior out of chocolate. Responding to the exhibition’s themes of permanence, ruins, growth, waste, and consumption, participants will explore form and function, real or imagined in the design of their interior environment.

As part of the Informal Architectures exhibition, artist Rita McKeough’s performance and installation piece Long Haul imagines the “voice” of the natural world as it struggles to co-exist with modern built civilization. Accompanied by a motorized tree, McKeough will comb the streets of Banff collecting natural materials for Long Haul beginning in Bison Courtyard and concluding at the Walter Phillips Gallery during the opening reception.

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Visit a handful of the beautiful residential gardens of Banff. Learn their secrets to success and become inspired by the possibilities available in this unpredictable mountain climate.

Come learn more about growing containers for the Banff/Canmore region that will attract butterflies in honour of Mike MacDonald's Butterfly Garden, as well as provide herbs for your kitchen. Customize your containers to suit your growing conditions and your gardening preferences then learn to widen your scope with the use of herbs, vegetables, tropicals, annuals and perennials. Katherine Ylitalo and Cathy Baceda will review the state of the art of container planting, lead you in planting up a few sample containers for sun and shade, and will present a variety of both unusual and tried and true plants. Bring photos of the spot(s) in your garden where you would like to place your containers. Come prepared to get your hands dirty.

This afternoon symposium will focus on Samuel Beckett's experiments with film and television as well as his influence on contemporary art. Guests include 18:Beckett curator Séamus Kealy and American video artist Gary Hill.  Lectures will conclude with a screening of Canadian director Atom Egoyan's film adaptation of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.

Canadian independent comic books, ’zines and graphic novels use drawings and the unique language of comic panels to tell stories, document events and people, and express individual ideas and values. Join Calgary illustrator Eric Dyck for a fun afternoon of comic making. The Road Trip transports elements from the Walter Phillips Gallery Comic Craze exhibition to Westbrook Mall. Visitors are invited to become inspired by the books then put pen to paper and tell their own story.