Join us for Re-Sounding Poetries: Collections, Classrooms, Communities, part of the SpokenWeb Sound Institute, featuring exhibitions and a poetry reading at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.

Visit the Alternator's Main and Project Galleries from May 14-17 for a free, all-ages exhibition showcasing works focused on Fred Wah and Pauline Butling, along with curated materials from the SoundBox Collection (Dr. Karis Shearer’s literary audio archive research collection including recordings of Marlatt, Thesen, and Wah from 1960s-2020).

Then, on Friday, May 16th, from 7:00 to 9:30 PM, don't miss a free, all-ages poetry reading presented by the SpokenWeb network, Inspired Word Cafe, and the Alternator, featuring acclaimed Canadian poets Daphne Marlatt, Sharon Thesen, and Fred Wah. Light refreshments and a cash bar will be available.

For more details and full schedule of events across May 14-17, click here!

Cool Arts Society presents Wonderland: Every Voice, Every Colour, an immersive exhibition that celebrates imagination, individuality, and the power of self-acceptance. Loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland, the show unfolds in vibrant colours, layered textures, and whimsical forms, inviting visitors into a world where difference is not only visible, but joyfully celebrated. Created by artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities, each piece reflects a personal journey — through painting, fibre arts, sculpture, and collaborative works such as mushrooms, mobiles, and a large fabric caterpillar. Themes of growth, transformation, and identity echo throughout the space, asking viewers to see differently and embrace the richness of diverse perspectives. 

Founded in 2003 by Sarah McDonald, Cool Arts Society is a nonprofit charitable organization and a vibrant space where art becomes language, freedom, and connection. Based in Kelowna, we offer fine arts opportunities to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, who weave, paint, sculpt, and create with heart. In a studio where every gesture is welcomed with care, inclusion becomes creation. Here, difference is not hidden -it is celebrated. 

Through visibility and self-expression, we honour their creativity and support their place as vital voices in the cultural landscape. Each artwork tells a story of dignity, beauty, and belonging.

The Guest Book is a dynamic, rotating group exhibition that reflects on creative gestures made in the Okanagan-Similkameen. The Guest Book includes 26 alumni of the Similkameen Artist Residency (SAR), featuring artworks made during or in response to their residency at SAR between 2021–23, and three Syilx-Okanagan artists. This exhibition reflects SAR’s gratitude for the artists who have shaped their identity as an organization, and for the communities and territories that surround and inspire us.

Mirroring the variable experience of attending the residency, small groupings of alumni artists’ work are installed for 1–2 weeks each, rotating throughout the exhibition. When developing this schedule, SAR curated groupings that encourage thematic and aesthetic conversations between artworks. These include performative processes in collaboration with nature; abstractions inspired by the landscape; the identities and regionalities of “home”; and processes of place. Instead of rotating like residency alumni works, Host Nation artists’ works stay in place throughout the exhibition, grounding the show and encouraging visitors to reflect on their relationship to the region. This curatorial decision is made out of respect for the Syilx-Okanagan people, who have created art on and tended to these lands since time immemorial.

Embodying SAR's goal of creating cross-regional dialogues, The Guest Book bridges local, national, and international artists. Through the showcased works, visitors will experience the energy of SAR, with each piece reflecting the unique perspectives and experiences of the artists who have contributed to our development. SAR is grateful for the opportunity to showcase these works, as each participating artist has been so generous in sharing their creativity with us.

On March 28 from 6-8pm, join us for an opening reception featuring light snacks and refreshments. This event is free and open to the public.

ROTATING SCHEDULE

WEEKS 1–6 | March 28–May 10

yutəlx Franchesca Raven Bell, Madeline Terbasket

On view for the duration of the exhibition, artworks by host nation artists ground the exhibition. Madeline Terbasket’s drag king persona Rez Daddy celebrates queer and two-spirit experience, and yutəlx Franchesca Raven Bell’s images integrate syilx cultural knowledge and reflect their ancestral territories.

WEEK 1 | March 29–April 5

Sidi Chen, Natasha Lavdovsky, Noelle Lee, Esteban Pérez, Andreas Rutkauskas, Niki Singleton, Isaiah Somsen

The exhibition opens with alumni artworks that explore collaborative, performance-based processes with and in nature. These works document human relationships with nature (on the land, with the land, of the land) and portray journalistic encounters with the region.

WEEK 2 | April 8–12

Laurence Belzile, Sidi Chen, Gemma Crowe, Esteban Pérez, Niki Singleton, Isaiah Somsen, Sherry Walchuk, Katherine Wilson

In week two, we see abstract impressions of the Okanagan-Similkameen. This suite of works includes strong textural interpretations that respond to and reflect the residency’s region. We see artists channeling the land, speaking to a particular time and place, and mapping memory.

WEEK 3 | April 15–19

Héloïse Auvray, Laurence Belzile, Alexandra Bischoff, Gemma Crowe, Jeff Hallbauer, Liz Toohey-Weise, Sherry Walchuk, Katherine Wilson, Ulrike Zöllner

Still speaking to abstraction, week three’s artworks move through imprints of place (memories, fuzzy or otherwise) and semiotics of place (the signs and symbols that represent the Okanagan-Similkameen). Here, we begin to consider abstract conceptions of home and the building of regional identities.

WEEK 4 | April 22–26

Héloïse Auvray, Alexandra Bischoff, Miriam Gil, Jeff Hallbauer, Emily Jayne May Myatt, Moe Pramanick, Liz Toohey-Weise, Marion Webber, Ulrike Zöllner

Week four marks a strong shift into the themes of home and identity, the building of these and their permeability. Processes of identity, of artmaking, and of where these intersect all contribute to the feelings of place and an urgency of being.

WEEK 5 | April 29–May 3

Maddie Alexander, Miriam Gil, Emily Jayne May Myatt, Sonny Park, Moe Pramanick, Lewis Reid, Eric Tkaczyk, Marion Webber, Julia Wong, Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora

All the artists in week five capture the mood of the region: the geography, meteorology, biology, entomology, and what else can be found around, and how these things affect the tone of the region and the ways in which artists make work here. There is a sincerity—and sometimes comedy—in these works, speaking to the processes of becoming one’s self.

WEEK 6 | May 6–10

Maddie Alexander, Sonny Park, Lewis Reid, Eric Tkaczyk, Julia Wong, Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora

Closing the exhibition, week six is a continuation of the themes in week five, only with a reduced number of works. This graduation mirrors the seasonal experience of attending the residency. We enter hibernation in November–December: the exodus of tourists quiets the community at large, and the snow and finite daylight of winter settle upon the valley.

Founded in 2021, the Similkameen Artist Residency (SAR) offers a tranquil, affordable, and supportive environment for artistic exploration in Keremeos, BC. As an artist-run residency program, we recognize that working artists face challenges when seeking dedicated time for their creative pursuits. Our inclusive program understands that all artists—including those at various career stages and across diverse artistic trajectories—should be given opportunities to rest and refocus their practices. Enhanced by an ethos of community, curiosity, and creative exchange, SAR’s self-directed residency structure fosters productive solo studio time and collegial, collaborative cohorts.

A meal. There’s nothing more common, more universally shared in every corner of the world, than the ritualistic togetherness of a meal. We all remember our favourite meals, the scent that fills homes through generations, or the rooms we hold in the core of our memories. In the background, a family picture hangs on the wall behind your mother; the plate you eat from is carved with knicks and scrapes of cutting and scooping bitefulls. There are random objects, light fixtures and family heirlooms that will be passed on to a cousin moving into their new home, and a garden breaths life as you peer outside the window in a child-like state of daydreaming.

manner(isms) welcomes viewers into a German-Cree biracial home and intends to be a reminder - there will always be social and historical intersections and commonalities between all people. In juxtaposition, hints towards the exhibitionism of traditional Indigenous homes introduce themselves through an anthropological lens. The mixture within manner(isms) consists of h(Oma)ge (book and frames), our Table, readymades and craftsmanship lean on notions of duality and embracing of the marvellous in the mundane.

In view, you’ll find separate series and objects presented in a familiar setting. The series of multimedia framed works and corresponding book, h(Oma)ge (2019), was created 11 years after the Matriarchal head passed, capturing memorable moments and Her spirit. our Table (2025) is a poem that furnishes the space with the epitome of a table spread: grounding gratitude. Readymades and beaded elements serve as a reminder that identity will always be intertwined in our beings, no matter how prominent, bright, or, at times, feeling out of relation to other parts of ourselves.

On March 28 from 6-8pm, join us for an opening reception featuring light snacks and refreshments. This event is free and open to the public.

AKB is a biracial Cree writer & strategist, born & raised in the Sylix Okanagan nation. They received a Bachelor of Arts in Western Art History & a minor in Anthropology at UBC, focusing on Western impacts on Indigenous cultures & museum curation. AKB's current works address themes of nature, interconnectedness & historical consciousness with recent achievements like their essay “(un)resolving liminality” for the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Arts (Fall 2024), an exhibition at the Kelowna Community Theatre (April-May 2024) of the multimedia project “Our Cabin In The Woods” & landing on the shortlist for UBCO’s Short Story Contest (Spring 2024) with their work “kimiwan.”

This exhibition explores possible understandings of the word “generation.” Loosely referencing a living room, the exhibition space invites viewers to take a seat on an inflatable plastic couch of millennial childhood dreams and flip through the pages of album, an artist book project featuring found family snapshots interpreted by a naively poetic AI, as well as iridescent cellophane. Viewers can also interact with a paper mâché boombox that plays sampled music from the instrumental intros of hit songs from the 1960s-80s. On the walls are cross stitch pieces derived from smartphone snapshots that are translated by a cross stitch pattern-generating software.

All three projects involve intersections of digital and craft, as well as gestures of the hand (taking pictures, flipping pages, pressing buttons, stitching). These acts of looking and making connect across generations: crafts taught by mothers to daughters, the family experience as seen by both parents and children, and music from one generation playing on another’s technology. 

Emily’s work critically engages with nostalgia—a sentiment often exploited for political gain. However, nostalgia isn’t simply a longing for the past. Rather, it can be understood as a yearning for home. Emily believes in its ability to speak to our surreal experiences of time. Through visual culture especially, nostalgia gives us a space to grieve a time and a place we didn’t realize we would miss. Or, it reminds us of how much we, and our world, have changed.

On March 28th from 6-8pm join us for an opening reception featuring light snacks and refreshments. This event is free and open to the public.

Emily Geen lives and works on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples (Victoria, BC). She is of British, French, and Irish ancestry, and grew up on an orchard on traditional Sylix Okanagan territory in Lake Country, BC. Emily received her BFA at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (2012), followed by her MFA at the University of Victoria (2015). She has had recent solo projects/exhibitions in Victoria at the Victoria Arts Council’s Satellite Window Gallery, the Ministry of Casual Living WindowGallery and at Empty Gallery. Her work has been included in group shows at the Art Gallery ofGreater Victoria, Support (London, ON), Gallery 44 (Toronto), and Gallery 295 (Vancouver). She has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre (2016) and at MOMENTUM Worldwide in Berlin (2017). Emily teaches photography, video art, and sculpture at the University of Victoria.

For more of Emily’s work, check out her website.

True Songs is a deeply personal series born from a year of transition, reflection, and reconnection during the pandemic. Having spent eight years away from Canada, I returned feeling like a stranger in my homeland. This series became a way to explore British Columbia and rediscover a sense of belonging amidst the uncertainty. 

Through travels across Osoyoos, Penticton, Summerland, Oliver, West Kelowna, Vancouver, Victoria, and Revelstoke, I sketched, sanitized, and captured moments of how we lived during this time. I witnessed loneliness, small joys, and the quiet determination that carried us forward. These shared experiences reminded me that, despite the isolation, we were navigating this together. 

Each evening, I transformed these observations into watercolor, soft pastels, glitter, salt, and water on paper. The flowing watercolors mirrored my emotions, while the textures and layers gave shape to fleeting yet powerful moments. Over time, the series grew into a visual storybook, with titles serving as prompts to connect with the work on a deeper level. 

True Songs invites the Alternator’s audience to reflect on resilience, connection, and the shared experiences of this time. It is both a personal expression and a call to explore how we move forward, together.

Born in Hong Kong in 1982 and raised in Toronto, Wynne draws on her multicultural background to create art that explores themes of belonging and love. Using abstraction and vibrant color, she evokes raw emotion and connection. Working with watercolor and acrylics, Leung's creations transcend boundaries, offering a reflection on shared humanity and the power of connection.

See more of Wynne’s work on her website!

“In my mind a closure of kinds is created when a statement is made. It suggests a complete understanding of a situation and  is therefore creating a closed chapter or a section of time suggesting it to be coming to an end. My practice is open ended and fluid. Something I try to maintain in my work at all times.”

Jeroen Witvliet is a Dutch / Canadian artist who mainly works in painting and drawing. Jeroen’s practice revolves around finding distinct imagery that addresses a variety of issues and subjects, ranging from historical, environmental, social and group dynamics, landscape, memory, art history and more but all are driven by a deep sense of uncertainty. In his paintings/drawings there is a constant push to challenge preconceived notions of the medium but also to question the linearity of his practice and (historical) timelines.

Jeroen’s exhibition of charcoal drawings will be on display in our Project gallery from February 7th to March 21st.

On February 7th from 6-8pm join us in an opening reception featuring light snacks and refreshments. This event is free and open to the public.

Jeroen Witvliet is a Dutch / Canadian artist working mainly in painting and drawing. After immigrating from the Netherlands to Canada, he moved to Vancouver BC and from there to Vancouver Island. Jeroen graduated from the Wilem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, the Netherlands with a BFA, studied film, video, and painting at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and holds an MFA from the university of Victoria, BC, Canada. 
His work has been exhibited throughout Europe and North America and is part of private and corporate collections. Jeroen has had thematic exhibitions based on the research and production of new work after the completion of international residencies and his practice has received multiple Canadian Council for the Arts and British Columbia Arts Council Grants.

In our Main Gallery from February 7th until March 21st, the Alternator is excited to display Tara Nicholson’s exhibition, 'Mammoths, EcoZombies and Permafrost Extinction.’

This exhibition endeavours to depict a polar ecosystem warming at a rate of 3-7 times faster than other landmasses. From this perspective, the Arctic can be seen as a microcosm of climate breakdown, where the accelerating effects of climate breakdown are already visible within its human and nonhuman animal ways of life. Arctic amplification or a quickened state of warming, will produce increases in extreme weather, altering animal migration and causing widespread habitat loss. Reflecting on permafrost, extinction and “eco-zombies,” the term attached to climate techno-fixes like (de)extinction and geoengineering, this exhibition looks to re-characterize “frozen life” as something increasingly valuable. Examining the fleeting nature of the Arctic, Nicholson questions the unseen realities of climate collapse to envision a post-anthropocentric representation of the Arctic.

The final exhibition will feature framed photographs, lightboxes, and ceramic tusk installations.

On February 7th from 6-8pm join us in an opening reception featuring light snacks and refreshments. This event is free and open to the public.

Tara Nicholson is an artist who explores ecological activism through a more-than-human lens. Her photo-based and installation practice has investigated Arctic extinction and permafrost research for the past ten years. She has exhibited and attended residencies across Canada and internationally while receiving funding from the BC Arts Council and Canada Council. She was invited to ‘Earthed,’ an eco-art residency (Banff Centre) and her recent exhibitions include “Wicked Problems” (Queens Gallery, UK), “This Image That” (Victoria Arts Council), “Site, Surface, Sample” (Gallery 44, Toronto) and “Fieldwork” (Lake Country Gallery). Tara is a Continuing Lecturer at UVic and is completing an interdisciplinary PhD at UBC, Okanagan.

On now at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Arts’ Members’ Gallery: ‘Lakeshore Meditations’ by Marguerite MacIntosh. This exhibition is on display at the Alternator until Saturday, February 22th, 2025.

This series of paintings grew from the artist’s practice of walks from her home through the Trout Creek neighbourhood in Summerland. MacIntosh’s regular walk skirts along the shore of Lake Okanagan where she makes an intentional pause to sit near water’s edge and look across the lake to the opposite shore. This pause is documented with a set of photographs of shore, lake, land and sky. The time of day and the frequency of walks varies with climate, road conditions and travel interruptions, yet they constitute an ongoing form of ritual that has been followed by the artist for over two years. The process of creating the multi-layered, formatted, abstract studio paintings serves as a contemplative exercise that incorporates the photographed lake and landscape colours. Each work includes intentional, constrained elements and spontaneous, intuitive interactions. As a group they form a visual inventory and meditation on particular moments at a particular place in the tradition of episodic series by artists such as Claude Monet and On Kawara.

The contrast of gridded/random dots and solid/expressive colours speak to the interface of life’s predictability and uncertainty. Consideration of liminal spaces such as the now between past and future, our bodies between our inner and outer worlds, and the intersection and interplay between physical and spiritual realities inform much of MacIntosh’s art practice. Her background in architecture, which deals with both the interface of the built environment within the landscape and the lived experience within built spaces, is evidenced in her use of clear geometric elements in conversation with gestural mark making and loose painterly brushstrokes.

On February 7th from 6-8pm join us in an opening reception featuring light snacks and refreshments. This event is free and open to the public.

The Gay Agenda is a pejorative phrase and idealogy coined by conservative religious groups targetting the advocacy of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. The idea being that queer people have created an elaborate scheme to recruit people to the queer lifestyle, encourage deviant behaviour, and dismantle institutions such as “traditional family and marriage”. While the queer community definitely has an agenda, this is not it. The reality is that queer people just want to live in a just and equitable society.

Over time, we have seen folks in the queer community combat this harmful rhetoric the best we know how; to advocate for our rights to exist, often using art, humour and joy as our best defence. The term “the gay agenda” has been adopted, reappropriated, and memeified by many queer groups, artists, activists, and the like to turn the phrase on its head. The Gay Agenda, an exhibition featuring 4 local Okanagan-based queer artists, aims to continue this tradition. The Gay Agenda brings together artists Jacen Dennis, Samantha Wigglesworth, Sarah Jones, and Fred Thacker in a group exhibition highlighting queer joy. Using queer joy as a form of resistance, we assert that we have always been here and will continue to always be here. As we continue to fight for our space in the world, which can oftentimes be challenging,  traumatic, and exhausting, the moments of joy, love, laughter, and peace in between are reminders of the true "agenda"—the right to exist and thrive.

On Friday, December 6th, from 6-8pm the Alternator will host a reception for The Gay Agenda, as well as salmon arm, bc. december 25, 2021 and Three Way Mirror by Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear, and Paige Gratland. Please join us to celebrate these fantastic artists, and catch a sneak peak at some of the work that Barrow, Gear, and Gratland will be creating during their residency in our Main Gallery. This event is free to attend and light snacks will be provided. RSVP on Eventbrite.

Jacen Dennis is a transgender (transmasculine) new media artist based in Kelowna, BC. Jacen’s current artistic practice explores intersections between gender transition and familial relationships, as well as transgender bodies in the natural world. He primarily combines filmed and photographic media with ambient looping digital animation presented in immersive multi-projector installations. 

Jacen completed his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan with his body of work: Seen|Unseen (2021). He was the project coordinator and lead animator for both the live performance projectMusic of the Heavens (2017) and the forthcoming animated short films and exhibition Celestial Bodies.

Fredrik Thacker is an artist based on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Syilx people. A queer and transgender man, Thacker’s work delves into themes of masculinity, gender-bending identities, pornography, and societal taboos. Known for drinking too much coffee and frequently using the cowboy emoji, Thacker is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

Thacker’s current body of work centers on a process of rapid regurgitation, exploring the complexities of queer sex, intimacy, and the consumption of pornographic imagery. By employing iconography and narratives familiar to the queer and transgender community, Thacker aims to create a dual response: offering comfort to those within these communities while generating discomfort in those unfamiliar with queer coding. This duality establishes a space that is simultaneously safe and unsafe, intimate yet estranged. Focusing on the materiality of paint application and the use of mixed media, Thacker recreates the visceral nature of sexual experiences through textured and abstracted figures, as well as depictions of sex objects or practices. With an intuitive, fast-paced approach, Thacker’s process becomes akin to brief flings with each figure, engaging with them just long enough to achieve artistic satisfaction.

Sarah Jones is a 2 Spirit Anishinaabe (bear clan) Interdisciplinary artist. Born and raised in Syilx Territory, away from her Nation of Iskatewi-zaaga'iganiing 40, Sarah created her art business honeycub to soothe her soul. In her work she is striving to reconnect with her lost culture and hopes to use her art as a tool to further explore Indigenous cultural practices and methodologies.

To understand the true meaning of the Anishinaabe language, we must first understand that the Anishinaabe describe their way of living using mainly verbs.

Aanik = to be interconnected

Aanikoobijigan is a concept word that translates to: an ancestor, a great-grandparent, or a great grandchild. These words all have the same meaning in Anishinaabemowin. This is a sacred teaching provided through the Seven Grandfather Teachings. 

The concept of Aanikoobijigan is as follows: 

“One to whom I am connected; I am inextricably linked to you; I am all of my relatives and they are all me.”

To consider how we live our life for the next seven generations to come, and for the seven generations that came before us. This concept brings us closer to our family before us and our family after us.  This is an example of ancestral and familial resiliency.

It is especially important to note that the damage done by Residential Schools and Colonization has completely ripped the fabric from the life of Indigenous people. Notions such as Aanikoobijigan have been almost lost to our people. With this piece the Artist Sarah Jones hopes to pay homage to her family who has suffered these great losses.

Artwork: Aanikoobijigan 2024. Mixed Media & Acrylic.

Samantha Wigglesworth is a queer femme artist who works primarily in queer, transgender and gender non-confirming representations through portraiture. Growing up in conservative Northern BC then moving to Abbotsford for their BFA at UFV was a truly eye opening time for her artistic journey. After Graduation Samantha decided to continue her studies with a Master of Fine Arts at UBCO in Kelowna in September of 2024. Here Samantha plans to use their research thesis to further explore contemporary issues around gender expression, around the increasingly violent and hostile tide of conservative rhetoric we are experiencing in North America. Through these works they will advocate for gender expression as a positive and liberatory act. Asking audiences to reexamine their preconceptions of gender and their judgments, challenging them to see how they might contribute to change.

Artworks from left to right:

I Wanna Be That Fucked Up Girl, acrylic on cavnas, gold foil.

If This Continues…, acrylic on canvas with beading.

please stop perceiving me, acrylic on wood panel with aluminum moving mosaic.

For our final Project Gallery exhibition of 2024, the Alternator is pleased to present salmon arm, bc. december 25, 2021 by zev tiefenbach.

The images in this exhibition were shot on the evening of December 25, 2021. It was a cold evening on the onset of a meteorological event called a "polar vortex". A text-based first-person narrative is embedded on the images and weaves its way through the collection.

This text is rooted in tiefenbach’s experience on this particular day. Some of the writing considers the quotidian; wondering if his wife will make Chinese food for dinner or what movie they’ll go out to see later. Some of the writing contemplates larger issues like why he moved into town from the country or how indicators of climate change impact the trajectory of their family.

 Cumulatively, the body of work seeks to re-imagine the landscape photograph.

Visually, this project is a story of displacement. As families, gather together inside to celebrate, he is alone outside documenting the largely white Christian world of middle-class Salmon Arm. The exteriority of the images stands in juxtaposition to the text which is a very interior monologue. 

This body of work posits that the landscape is not a static, generalized moment, but a subjective time/place informed by teifenbach’s family history, his restless temperament, an unfolding climate crisis, questions of hetero-normativity in architecture, and moral questions of how to live in a world dominated by injustice. 

tiefenbach seeks to create depictions of the landscape that resist the decontextualization of the photograph that otherwise proposes itself as whole. Instead, he acknowledges the photograph as part of an inter-connected discourse where indicators of climate crisis such as the polar vortex, the heat dome, and the atmospheric river live simultaneously in our consciousness. A landscape where his family's inability to raise a raspberry crop is informed by his son's need for brain surgery which speaks to why they now live in town. 

Intrinsic to the storytelling is the visuality. The images are arresting and immersive creating a vivid engagement with place and time. tiefenbach wants to tell this fragment of his story rooted in the experience of a bitterly cold evening traversing through this middle-class residential neighborhood where Christmas lights mingle with dusk and blowing snow. 

The quantity and materiality of the lightboxes help do this. Upon entering the darkened exhibition space, the viewer is transported. The glow of the lightboxes is like opening the door to a star-filled night, inviting viewers to share this evening walk with him. The 3-dimensionality of the boxes gives a depth to the viewing plane. Christmas lights punctuate the purple dusky sky through the backlit film. The streetlights cast an orange glow as the taillights of a car make their way down an otherwise deserted road. The light source itself gives the viewer pause to dwell within the image, absorb the nuances of the scene and read through the text as though they had come for a stroll with me on this cold evening in Salmon Arm. 

So while, the sequence explores questions of displacement, the body of work is meant to be centered within his own experience. This intimacy mitigates his own sense of being "othered". Perhaps it also reminds the audience of being closer to themselves in the places they habitate?

On Friday, December 6th, from 6-8pm the Alternator will host a reception for salmon arm, bc. december 25, 2021, as well as Three Way Mirror by Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear, and Paige Gratland and The Gay Agenda by Jacen Dennis, Sarah Jones, Fred Thacker, and Samantha Wigglesworth. Please join us to celebrate these fantastic artists, and catch a sneak peak at some of the work that Barrow, Gear, and Gratland will be creating during their residency. This event is free to attend and light snacks will be provided. RSVP on Eventbrite.

zev tiefenbach is a second-generation Canadian, currently based in Salmon Arm on unceded secwépemc territory. tiefenbach’s grandparents are holocaust survivors and tiefenbach was raised within a post-traumatic ethos where imminent catastrophe was superimposed over the quotidian. tiefenbach’s childhood was spent in a city where the dissonance between his middle-class surroundings and his own internalized sense of victimhood instilled a curiosity to explore the intersection between landscape, trauma and narrative. His work uses lens-based mediums, text, installation and constructions of the archive to describe his post-genocidal passage through the world. tiefenbach has a BFA from Concordia University and is an MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

Special thanks to Victoria Verge and Devyn Farr for production assistance.

For our final Main Gallery presentation of the year, the Alternator is pleased to present a unique half-residency, half exhibition by the Three Way Mirror collective.

For artists who belong to a social group that has often been marginalized, it is unsurprising that the Three Way Mirror queer collective are drawn to similarly marginalized crafts – art forms linked to the personal and political. For each member of Three Way mirror, there has been a natural progression, resulting in the production of queer colourways, glitter-bombed sealskins and paper-doll poems, as well as the “sewing circle” as a preferred mode of studio practice.

For the first few weeks of their time at the Alternator, the Three Way Mirror (Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear and Paige Gratland) will create a queer craft “triangle” that will serve both as a production studio that will look forward to the group exhibition and as a touchstone for queer conceptual craft community.

On December 20th, from 5-7pm join us as we unveil the finished exhibition! For two weeks, artists Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear, and Paige Gratland have been working away on a new series of work. Collaborating across a variety of mediums, the trio have been creating work that is rooted in craft traditions. Their time at the Alternator culminates this Friday as we reveal their finished exhibition!

Come celebrate Three Way Mirror with a cozy evening reception. Tea and light snacks are provided. This reception is free and open to the public!

Three Way Mirror will be on view in the Main Gallery from December 20 2024 - January 25 2025.

Daniel Barrow is a Montreal-based artist who works in video, film, print-making and drawing, but is best known for his use of antiquated technologies, his “registered projection” installations, and his narrative overhead projection performances. Barrow describes his performance method as a process of, “creating and adapting comic narratives to manual forms of animation by projecting, layering and manipulating drawings on overhead projectors”.

Glenn Gear is an interdisciplinary artist of Inuit and Irish ancestry from Nunatsiavut, Labrador and based in Montreal. Gear has been working in hand-beaded objects, combining Inuit methods with his own intimate processes and approaches, which convey latent queer realities in traditional patterns. Working in beadwork on sealskin, Gear has begun incorporating glitter, sequins and other signifiers of queer culture to embrace personal and cultural connections between land, people, and animals through research-based creation. His handcrafted beadwork and animated films incorporate layers of meaning derived from materials, collage, and craft techniques, seen through an indigiqueer lens.

Paige Gratland is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work is informed by social history and design, producing projects and objects that explore craft practices, intergenerational exchange and relationships to colour. She learned to weave in 2019 at the Richmond Weavers and Spinners Guild (British Columbia) and is currently enrolled in the Master Weaver Program at Olds College (Alberta).

Katja Ewart's screen print installation, Happiness Only Real When Shared, examines how the human spirit and memory are influenced by landscape and environment. The work intends to act as a gesture of gratitude towards the environments and individuals who have shaped her memories. The imagery in the work is a collection of personal memories that Ewart has created in British Columbia since moving away from Calgary, her hometown. She aims to highlight the small details found in nature that often go unnoticed due to the fast pace of individuals' daily lives. Her work creates an environment that encourages observation through image distortion and repetition of imagery. By printing on a variety of delicate and translucent materials, the imagery begins to overlap and distort the works nearby. This interconnectedness of the imagery reflects memories in the human mind; one memory affects how others are interpreted. 

Despite her love for digital processes, like filmmaking and photography, Ewarts's recent work has been created with the intention of moving away from digital processes. It relies on both digital and analog mediums. Katja enjoys working with the physical process of screen-printing,  as it allows her to turn away from technology and focus on the materiality of her work. Through the process of creation, she has explored the relationship between tangible objects and memories, and the installation reflects how documentation of events does not always reflect reality. 

Katja Ewart's creation begins with a film camera and 35-millimetre negatives, which she then processes and scans. With these high-resolution scans of the film made, the images are then printed onto a film that can be transferred onto a silkscreen. Once the images are transferred onto the screen, the physical screen printing can begin. Throughout this process, there are infinite moments for errors to occur, which oftentimes they do. These mistakes often serendipitously change the work. 

Happiness Only Real When Shared will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from November 8 - 30 2024.

Learn more about Katja Ewart’s work on her website.

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art invites applications for the position of:

COMMUNITY OUTREACH ASSISTANT

Application Deadline: October 31 2024, midnight

Part time. 12 hrs/week (Fridays & Saturdays)

Remuneration: $18.00/hr

We are currently seeking values-aligned applicants for the position of Community Outreach Assistant.

Working with the Artistic and Administrative Director and the Assistant Director, the Community Outreach Assistant will support the gallery’s external communications activities, as well as participate in general gallery activities including administration, volunteer coordination and exhibition installation / deinstallation.

The preferred applicant will have some experience in visual and/or media arts, and a familiarity with artist-run centres. They are a highly responsible team player with excellent interpersonal and organizational skills, and can demonstrate personal initiative and leadership within a collective environment.

Major responsibilities include: drafting and scheduling external communications including our newsletter and social channels, assisting with daily administrative duties including volunteer coordination, general exhibition installation and maintenance.

We are seeking applicants with the following characteristics:

• Excellent oral and written communication skills with an eye for detail, accuracy and clarity.

• Familiarity with the Mac environment, including Word, Excel, Adobe CS, and template-based web design platforms.

• Physical ability and knowledge to perform preparatory and installation work.

• Strong interpersonal skills, and an ability to connect with patrons from diverse backgrounds.

• Ability to work with a team as well as independently.

• Flexibility to work daytime, evening and weekend shifts.

To apply, submit a single PDF document (titled ‘YourFirstNameYourLastname.pdf’) containing a cover letter, resume and contact information for two references to HR@alternatorcentre.com. Please write 'Attn. Hiring Committee' in the email subject line. Deadline October 31 2024, midnight. Applications will not be accepted in person.

The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art encourages applications from under-represented cultural workers of all backgrounds including, but not limited to, Indigenous, Black, and racialized persons; refugee, newcomer and immigrant persons; two-spirit, LGBTQ+ and gender non-binary persons, persons with diverse abilities, and those on low-incomes.

We thank all who express interest in this position, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Amy Van Dongen is an Okanagan artist, art therapist and owner of Bloom Art Therapy. As an art therapist, Amy believes that art is innately healing and enjoys the calming ability that an art practice offers.

Dear Diary, explores Van Dongen's inner world and life experiences. Each page is an image of how it felt to be Van Dongen, at that time of making it. Van Dongen also invites the viewer to interact with the work to explore the medium of black-out poetry. Explore Van Dongen's pieces amongst many blank pages where the viewer can interact with the pages directly on the glass. Then, come, sit back and relax, grab some art supplies and deep dive into your own altered book practice, where you will often find yourself writing a diary entry without trying. Books and materials are provided. 

Van Dongen hopes to open the door to creativity, to create quiet moments, and to help ground participants back to themselves. By offering take-home recycled books to the audience and a space for creating. Van Dongen hopes to spark a love of altered books, encourage using art to express emotions and most of all, encourage everyone to create time to just be themselves. The altered book itself can act as a metaphor for you to change an existing story, to create your own story that's uniquely yours. 

Combining words with visuals is Van Dongen's most authentic way of communicating her feelings. Each of us will have our own unique way of expressing our feelings visually. Giving us each the gift of a brand-new perspective. When choosing your book, really think about why you are drawn to it. Make sure the book is the right fit. Happy creating!

Dear Diary, will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from October 11 to November 2 2024.

You can learn more about Amy Van Dongen on her Instagram: @amyloreafineart  and @bloomarttherapy.amy

In New Noise: Okanagan Punk and Metal, Ari Pielecki explores the small but lively subculture of extreme music in the Okanagan Valley through a series of black and white photographs produced between August 2022 and August 2024. These images invite viewers to enter the world of extreme music and engage with subcultures that they may not have known existed in the Okanagan. New Noise is an ongoing project which serves as both a documentation and celebration of the bands and venues who make it possible for these scenes to survive. Pielecki is an independent Filmmaker and Photographer who currently resides in Kelowna, B.C. on the unceded territory of the Syilx Peoples. 

For the general public, Punk and Metal bring to mind images of violent and rebellious youth, or long-haired individuals covered in far too much spiked jewelry (both groups sporting denim vests covered in illegible band logos). While these stereotypes hold some truth, these music genres have historically been misunderstood by those who are not a part of the culture which surrounds them. The “scary” aesthetic of these genres symbolizes a shared musical interest, which helps Punks and Metalheads identify others who are part of their scene. Both the Punk and Metal music scenes share something beyond their intentionally inaccessible aesthetic: a devotion to community building, and a shared love for live music. For those who are immersed in them, these music scenes represent positive connection, as well as a safe space to exist in an ever-alienating world. 

New Noise: Okanagan Punk and Metal will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from September 13 - October 5, 2024.

Think of a child once rescued from drowning, still scared of water as an adult. Think of a traumatic experience that traumatizes the person, now struggling to view the world the same as before. Now think of a white paper void of characters as Locke puts it -the Tabula Rasa. This resembles the mind as it starts blank and all the pieces of reason and knowledge, the perception of a “self”- the identity- are derived from experiences. Then imagine a gateway, the medium that ties one’s experiences to this blank slate. Memory! Memory that not just captures, but ties oneself, one’s identity, to one’s memories; lived, being lived, and still to live. Tavakoli’s practice attempts to re-interpret the Identity-memory relationship. As in the identity that cannot be reachable without being lost in memories, and the memories that cannot be experienced, remembered, or even stored without reflecting on the identity of the person carrying them. 

Tavakoli uses technical strategies to deconstruct her compositions, and then displace and distort the reality as we know it, to articulate that memory and identity cannot be defined separately given the complex overlapping nature of the two concepts. Tavakoli’s detailed and impactful charcoal drawings use collage as a starting point to entertain the interdependence of experiences (memories) and identity. What is collage more than fragments you put together to make sense? In Kentridge’s opinion, that is the very way we go through the world. “As a coherent being, one understands this self in fact is a completely provisional fragile construction of a walking collage of thoughts and ideas and thinking.” How then can a person be defined independent of society? Influenced by the socio-political climate of Iran where she grew up as a female artist, Tavakoli draws inspiration and reflects upon the black marks that are left on this collage that is her identity, that is Tavakoli. 

- Parsa Gooya

بطن The core of my person will be on view in the Project Gallery from September 13 - October 26, 2024.

Maryam Tavakoli (b. 1997, Isfahan, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Victoria, BC. She received an MFA degree from the University of Victoria in 2023 subsequent to her BFA from the best art university in her home country, Tehran University of Art, Iran. Tavakoli’s practice questions the relationship between identity, memory, and time. In her works, she makes use of a variety of materials that can embody the vague distorted reflections of memory and identity upon one another, through a combination of practices involving drawing, installation, and sculpture. She seeks to explore identity through memories of lived life experiences, personal traumas, and the social/cultural structure of her home country. Tavakoli’s work has been exhibited in over a dozen exhibitions over the two years since her arrival in Canada, including notable juried solo exhibitions at the Fiftyfifty Arts Collective and Xchanges Gallery in Victoria. She has been the recipient of numerous scholarships through the University of Victoria and is currently teaching as a sessional instructor in both the Visual Arts Department and Continuing Studies Department at UVic.

Jordan Hill is a Coast Salish (T’Sou-ke Nation) new media artist from Vancouver Island whose work alludes to the blurred line between fact and fiction within contemporary culture. Hill questions how we navigate a spatially manipulated world where truth is incredibly difficult to locate both physically and virtually. He juxtaposes unexpected ideas and seemingly unrelated locales, uncovering the intersections between urban and rural facades in ways that transform how we think about both. Hill’s work utilizes our relationship with technology and virtual imagery in a way that helps us foster a deeper connection with the world away from it.

In the piece, Horizontal Vertigo, Hill addresses themes of exhaustion, facade, and transparency in a contemporary society asking too much of our time and energy. In an era where physical and digital environments impose relentless pressure, there is a constant insistence for society and individuals to be producing, to be moving. We find these pressures both in physical and digital environments, becoming increasingly impossible to escape, resulting in perpetual exhaustion. Empathy becomes exhausting through the unrelenting nature of capitalism. We start to become desensitized to this movement, our thoughts and experiences become fleeting. Horizontal Vertigo is a response to facades and spaces relying on the tiredness we are conditioned to accept. 

This interactive installation allows viewers to walk in front of and through the projections, casting a silhouette revealing the brutalism behind the trees. These screens behave as a manufactured facade as a way to question our spatial relationship between the physical and digital. In what ways do we allow our intuition to be undermined by a fast-moving world? In a world of content where the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred, it is important we find moments to slow down. This project gives autonomy back to the viewer, allowing for the time and space to spend with a moment that might otherwise push you through it. 

In Peripheral Loading, Hill addresses themes of memory, growth, the virtual, and exhaustion in a contemporary digital age in which we are overexposed to rapid expansion of information. The world is never truly off; we are subject to constant change at all scales, our attention as a commodity is at a premium and can become as fleeting as the information we generate. This project pokes fun at urban sprawl development sites and the temporary fence around them. Lined with mesh, they host utopic renderings of what's to come--a promise of lifestyle and luxury. Much like headlines and thumbnails in virtual spaces, development facades and renderings rely on immediacy to make quick shallow impressions, in spite of the contents they hold. 

In Peripheral Loading, Hill reconstructs the lifeless and flat qualities of these renderings, and encourages viewers to be critical of their relationship within ever-present rapid growth. How do we effectively keep track of our ever-changing public spaces if our attention is at a constant divide? Hill’s interrogation of the development site comes from living in 3 Canadian cities in 5 years, all going through rapid growth movements. Specifically, he reflects on his experience of watching and feeling space change in real-time, to be replaced with fences, craters, and concrete skeletons -- taking away shortcuts, sightlines, and memories of what was before them.

The Missing Distance will be on view in the Main Gallery from September 13 - October 26, 2024.

This exhibition contains flashing lights, images, and other luminous stimulations which may induce epileptic seizures in certain individuals.

Jordan Hill is a Coast Salish (T’Sou-ke Nation) new media artist from Vancouver Island whose work alludes to the blurred line between fact and fiction within contemporary culture. Hill’s work utilizes our relationship with technology and virtual imagery in a way that helps us foster a deeper connection with the world away from it.

See more of Hill’s work on his website and Instagram.

This exhibition acknowledges the support of Arts Nova Scotia.
This exhibition acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Mariposa, the Spanish word for butterfly, references S.C. Jean’s growth and evolution as an artist. The Okanagan-based artist titled her exhibition Mariposa to embody the theme of change. For the artist, change is one of the most significant forces at play. An ever present element, infinitely occurring on multiple levels, feeding back into itself creating further and deeper expansions. The artist has attempted to capture this sense of change through brushwork, mark-making, colour and composition that, though static in reality, visually continues to change as the viewer observes her work.

Mariposa includes a selection of painting and drawing works, all of which feature Jean’s signature style of mark-making. All the works in the exhibition consider the ways in which the artist has grown as an artist since being involved with the Alternator as a loyal member and active volunteer. The four works on canvas were intentionally created for Jean’s exhibition. Reflecting on her time spent as a member of the Alternator community, Jean attempts to render her gratitude and admiration through painterly mark-making and use of colour. Alongside the large paintings are a series of small ink drawings, many of which were created while volunteering at the Alternator as a gallery host. This body of work reflects on Jean’s time spent participating with the Alternator community; crediting the community for pushing her to be artistically bold and for opening the door of wonder into the world of art.

S.C. Jean is an artist based on Okanagan Sylix territory in Kelowna where she has lived and worked for the past thirty years. A self-taught artist, in 2012 Jean felt compelled to take up painting and has continued in earnest to develop her style. Jean has shown her work in numerous exhibitions throughout the Okanagan region including at the the Lake Country Art Gallery, the Peachland Art Gallery, the Penticton Art Gallery, the Kelowna Art Gallery and the Alternator Center for Contemporary Art.

The Annual Postcard Project is back and this year we celebrate 35 years of the Alternator!

Once again the Alternator is celebrating our diverse creative community through our Annual Postcard Project. To commemorate our 35th year in the Kelowna arts community we invited our members to fill the walls of the gallery salon-style with original artworks and postcards.

The Annual Postcard Project is an opportunity for local artists to exhibit their work in the Alternator’s professional gallery space, creating a grand mosaic that showcases both the people involved with the gallery and the work they produce. This annual members’ exhibition doubles as an exhibition and sale where visitors could take home (or gift!) a part of the Okanagan’s rich arts community. Artists will take home 75% of sales while the remaining 25% supports the Alternator’s programming.

Everything in the gallery is up for sale, from artworks on the wall ranging from paintings, prints, and ceramics to our series of original, handmade postcards made by our member artists. To reflect on 35 years of the Alternator, we also invited artists spanning the last 3 decades to contribute their own unique postcards. Check out our online gallery of these special Alternator Artist Postcards here:

All artworks in the exhibition are unique originals and available for sale with prices ranging as low as $15.00 and up. People are encouraged to visit early, however, as works in the exhibition are sold, they will be removed from the wall and taken home with their new owners.

Kaylyn Hardstaff is an Edmonton-born, Kelowna-based artist. She graduated in April 2023 from NSCAD University’s Fine Arts Program in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Since moving to Kelowna in May 2023, she has worked at the Rotary Centre for the Arts as the Educational Program Coordinator. 

Kaylyn’s artistic practice in recent years has been focused on fleeting time, precarious moments, light, shadow and how all of these concepts fit together into her work. Kaylyn has been particularly interested in the idea of home, what makes a space or city feel like home, and how she can use her practice to become more comfortable in a space. After spending the last several years moving across Canada from Edmonton to Halifax, within Halifax a handful of times, and then from Halifax to Kelowna, her work has become very focused on capturing moments of day to day comfort, discomfort, joy, and awareness found in each new space or city. 

Kaylyn has been working through these concepts and ideas through drawing, writing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation.

‘23-’24 / 24-25 will be on view in the Members’ Gallery from June 7 - 29, 2024.