robert tombs studio

Pasapkedjiwanong: Mary Anne Barkhouse & Olivia Whetung, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Ottawa, ON (2024)

Pasapkedjiwanong is a two-person exhibition by Mary Anne Barkhouse and Olivia Whetung. Housed in the building that the Royal Canadian Geographical Society occupies next to the juncture where the Rideau Falls cascade into the Ottawa River and overlooking the confluence of the Gatineau, Ottawa, and Rideau watersheds, the exhibit reflects on the turbulence, as well as beauty, of the history of the region.

The works included in this exhibition consider the damage done to Indigenous homelands by industry, extraction, and colonialism. The decimation of resources such as timber, in conjunction with the colonization of waterways through canal and dam construction, has had dire consequences on the ability of Indigenous persons to sustain themselves in a landscape that has been devastated. Moreover, the swamps and forests that nurture biodiversity have been ravaged. The works in this exhibition use imagery of native plants, non-human animals, forests, and wetlands to explore themes of grief and resilience in the wake of this devastation, and the persistence of the wild. 

Mary Anne Barkhouse is a member of the ‘Namgis First Nation of Alert Bay, BC and a citizen of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. Olivia Whetung is a member of Curve Lake First Nation and citizen of the Nishnaabeg Nation.

Curated by Robert Tombs

Bill Coleman & Gordon Monahan: Sound of Mind and Body, Carleton Dominion- Chalmers Centre, Ottawa, ON (2024)

This collaboration by Bill Coleman and Gordon Monahan was presented at the repurposed Dominion-Chalmers Church, now Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre (CDCC), on September 28th. Originally designed by architect Alexander Cowper Hutchinson as the Bank Street Presbyterian Church in 1868, CDCC provided excellent acoustics. Bill and Gordon demonstrated concepts of human-to-computer brainwave interfacing to manipulate and produce real-time music, sound and lighting, integrated with dance, body performance and slapstick. An EEG interface worn by dancer-choreographer Coleman sent data to several Max/MSP software patches in real-time. As Coleman shifted through various states of mental and physical concentration and movement, he was able to produce and control alpha-brainwaves while dancing. He used these alpha waves in conjunction with Monahan’s software manipulations, to produce various responses in musical instruments such as piano and percussion, to control the fading of stage lights, sound spatialization and audio processing. Monahan simultaneously controled several Max/MSP software patches on stage that harnessed Coleman’s brain signals to sculpt soundwaves, light, instrumental composition and kinetic actions into a progressively layered multi-media artwork.

Curated by Robert Tombs

art+language: Contemporary Korean Graphic Design, Korean Cultural Centre Canada, Ottawa, ON (2023)

art+language: Contemporary Korean Graphic Design was an exhibition of posters, ephemera, font design, book design, publishing, video, objects, animation and web site design by six leading contemporary Korean artists at the forefront of artistic practice. Participants were: Kyungsun Kymn, a Seoul-based typographic designer and visual researcher of the Hangeul alphabet who studied in Korea and England, and who was a visiting professor in Ottawa at Carleton University during the 2022–23 academic year; Kyung Park, a Toronto-based, US-trained Korean-Canadian graphic designer; Seoul-based Choi Sulki and Choi Sung Min – who work as the partnership ‘Sulki & Min’ and who studied Korea, the US, and The Netherlands; Seoul-based Dr. Yongje Lee, a typographic designer who studied in Korea, and has lived in Canada; YuJune Park, a Korea- and US-trained graphic designer, and principal of Synoptic Office, a New York City design studio.

Curated by Dr. Wonjoon Chun, Carleton University; Robert Tombs, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts; and Professor Henk van Assen, Yale University

Marina Roy, Jinny Yu & the Painted Object, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Ottawa, ON (2023)

This exhibition was comprised of two painted works — by contemporary artists Marina Roy and Jinny Yu — who each use paint amongst an array of art media within unique studio practices. As newly-created responses to the extraordinary limestone, sandstone and shale promontory upon which the modernist white Upper Gallery space is situated — overlooking the confluence of the Rideau, Gatineau and Ottawa rivers — and with an appreciation of the commingling histories of its Indigenous and settler occupants, each artist referenced the many colonial intrusions into the unceded ancestral territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation that began in the early 1600s. Both Roy and Yu’s ongoing dialogues with painting, whether in abstract or representative terms, include references to material, process, identity, and the Anthropocene. This was Roy and Yu’s first exhibit together.

Curated by Robert Tombs

Ghost Stations: Amanda Dawn Christie, Thaddeus Holownia & Radio Canada International, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Ottawa, ON (2022)

Ghost Stations was comprised of multiple works including a sound installation, digital stills and a feature-length experimental documentary film by Amanda Dawn Christie, Spectres of Shortwave/Ombres des ondes courtes (2016); and a portfolio of banquet camera format silver gelatin contact photographs by Thaddeus Holownia, The Radio Canada International Portfolio 1977–2006. It documented, in still and moving image, aspects of the 13 now-demolished shortwave towers of Radio Canada International’s installation on the Tantramar Marshes of Sackville, New Brunswick. With these documents of Modernity’s industrial footprint, the exhibition positioned the work of Christie and Holownia at a rich intersection of art and telecommunications engineering.

Curated by Robert Tombs

Objekt: ett läsrum/a reading room/une salle de lecture, SUPERMARKET: Stockholm Independent Art Fair, Stadsgårdsterminalen, Stockholm, Sweden (2021)

The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts presented the exhibition Objekt—ett läsrum/a reading room/une salle de lecture at SUPERMARKET 2021: Stockholm Independent Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden. Objekt was a space where art fair attendees could freely peruse book works by thirty-four contemporary Canadian artists, invited through an open call to members and selected 2018, 2019, and 2020 Passages artist-presenters’ works. Participants were Diane Bisson, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Deanna Bowen, Jane Buyers, Ginette Caron, Amanda Dawn Christie, Sorel Cohen, Christos Dikeakos, Josée Dubeau, Pnina C. Gagnon, Adrian Göllner, Jerry Grey, Wesley Harris, Lucy Hogg, Thaddeus Holownia, Geoffrey James, Peter Krausz, Guy Lavigueur, Naoko Matsubara, Gordon Monahan, Robert Murray, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Leslie Reid, Marina Roy, John A. Schweitzer, Nick Shinn, Michael Snow, Alan Stein, Penelope Stewart, Robert Tombs, Henk van Assen, George Webber, Andrew Wright and Jinny Yu. The RCA additionally co-presented with Elektronmusikstudion EMS, the sound performance Boiling Water by the Canadian pianist, sculptor, and composer of experimental music, Gordon Monahan, while Robert Tombs delivered the talk “Death to Books.”

Curated by Robert Tombs

Passages 2.0, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON (2019)

On October 26, 2019, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) hosted its second symposium, Passages 2.0, which included Michael Belmore (Ottawa, ON), Deanna Bowen (Toronto, ON), Todd Colbourne (Kingston, ON), and Marina Roy (Vancouver, BC). Following the 2018 format, after the individual presentations were completed, there was a roundtable talk with all four artists taking questions from the audience, animated by co-curators Robert Tombs and Michael Davidge. Though ‘passages’ was the name of the event, it was merely a loose placeholder and there was no attempt made to have thematic unity amongst the presenters. Subjects included contemporary architecture, video, sculpture, painting, installation, and writing, sometimes within a consideration of race and gender.

Curated by Robert Tombs

Passages, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON (2018)                        

On May 19, 2018, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts hosted its inaugural symposium, Passages, which included Rosalie Favell (Ottawa, ON); Mitch Hall (Toronto, ON); Gordon Monahan (Meaford, ON); Annie Thibault (Gatineau, QC); and Jinny Yu (Ottawa, ON). After the individual presentations were completed, there was a roundtable discussion with the four artists and one architect taking questions from the audience. This was one of the first public events in the new Ottawa Art Gallery building which opened in April 2018.

Curated by Robert Tombs