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Max Liboiron: Trashscapes and Rubbish Topographies at Touchstones

Nelson Daily Staff
By Nelson Daily Staff
January 20th, 2011

Max Liboiron: Trashscapes and Rubbish Topographies

Jan. 15 to April 10 @ Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art and History

From trash to treasure, artist Max Liboiron’s reforming of our trash into tantalizing works of art and “walk in” art installations has contagious impact on the communities in which she exhibits her work.

Last year’s exhibition Salt Winning at the Oxygen Art Centre saw crowds lining up to trade in their possessions in exchange for a piece of salt encased trash.

Her upcycled trash environments offer the viewer an opportunity not just for assisting in the completion of a piece, but also a chance to reflect on one’s relationship to the environments in which we inhabit.

This January, in Gallery B Liboiron will install Trashscapes and Rubbish Topographies, a landscape made from road salt, used tea bags and styrofoam eroded by water-borne pollutants.

According to Liboiron, “waste and pollution are a permanent global phenomenon; I use them as raw materials to make fantastic mythological landscapes based on present environmental issues.”

Gallery visitors will be invited to bring their own used (and dried) tea bags to the gallery to create a mountain of sweet smelling rubbish to rival the scale of the artwork.

Max Liboiron grew up in northern Canada in a small rural community. Her understanding of environmental relationships was formed within this context, and has been influential in both her early studies in biology and her more topical inquiries in art.

She holds an MFA and a Certificate in Cultural Studies from the State University of New York in Stony Brook, New York, and BFA with Distinction from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick.

She is currently pursuing a PhD at New York University in Visual Culture with a focus on environmentalism. She divides her time between New York, New York and Winlaw.

The exhibit opened last week at Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art and History.

 

 

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