HABITUATE, ACCLIMATE

Crowsnest Pass Public Art Gallery
January 26 - February 22

Habituate, Acclimate features the artworks of two emerging Alberta photographers, Nahanni McKay and Liam Kavanagh-Bradette. Both artists have created a series that explore emerging survival dependencies necessitated by the effects that humans have had upon the environment.

In the summer of 2016, McKay was working as a campground attendant at Two Jack Lake in Banff National Park when a wolf was euthanized after becoming habituated to human food. The incident had a lasting impression on the artist. She began to question the role of national parks as tourist destinations and the location of the campground within an active wildlife corridor. The title of her series, Loop 14, is a reference to the location where the wolf was shot. Her photographs pay homage to the spirit of that wolf and the five additional wolves that died of unnatural causes in Banff that summer.

Kavanagh-Bradette’s work is also related to a food supply dependency but concerning the people of Nunavut who rely on freight shipments from southern Canada to deliver essential cargo (food, goods and fuel). Since the beginning of the twentieth century, climate change has opened up the seaways and drastically changed Inuit economy and culture. Kavanagh-Bradette brings attention to this new reality through his photographs of the people working at the forefront of the change.

Habituate, Acclimate is presented by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program in partnership with Exposure: Alberta’s Photography Festival.

Curator: Shannon Bingeman

Open: Tue - Fri: 12:00 - 16:00 & Sat: 13:00 - 16:00
Access: Location is wheelchair accessible. Exhibition is child friendly.
For more information see crowsnestpasspublicartgallery.com & albertasocietyofartists.com/trex-southwest

Crowsnest Pass Public Art Gallery, 14737 20 Ave, Frank AB T0K 0E0