Manuel Piña to give an artist's talk about his moving video installation Naufragios, at Surrey Art Gallery
Exploring migration, the ocean, and utopia, the UBC instructor appears December 2
Manuel Piña, Naufragios, 2015, two-channel video installation still (15:38).
Manuel Piña
The artist behind the video installation Manuel Piña: Naufragios is set to appear at Surrey Art Gallery’s Thursday Art Talks series on December 2.
The moving video artwork, on view till March 20, 2022, turns the ocean into a form of kaleidoscope, the sea endlessly twisting and fragmenting around itself in geometric patterns.
Titled after the Spanish word for “shipwreck,” Naufragios captures concerns about utopia, migration, and space. Through edited imagery of the ocean, Piña's work reflects upon time and image-making. The project extends Piña’s ongoing investigation of everyday images and abstraction in lens-based media. His art speaks to force and movement in the form of wakes, ripples, and waves.
Naufragios draws attention to the ocean’s many symbolic meanings and its relevance to current affairs. The ocean embodies the dreams of peoples relocating to a new home, while at the same time evoking colonial conquest, commerce, and expansion. In twisting the imagery of the ocean, Piña interrupts these processes or at least calls them into question.
Piña’s free talk, from 7:30 to 9 pm at Surrey Art Gallery, will offer visitors insights into the complexities of the artist’s philosophy and into his creative process.
Piña was born in Havana and graduated as mechanical engineer in Vladimir, Russia, in 1983. He began exhibiting his art in 1992 and has been a professor at the University of British Columbia since 2004. His work has been exhibited globally, and he works as an artist, teacher, and social and spiritual activist. His research adopts spirituality and technology as a way of expanding upon present realities and challenges.
You can see the installation at Surrey Art Gallery this fall along with Sandeep Johal: What If?, a provocative celebration of South Asian feminine identity; q̓ʷɑti̓cɑ: k̓ʷam̓k̓ʷəm̓ tə šxʷhəliʔ / Phyllis Atkins: Divine Connection, a showcase of the artist’s connection with her cultural and spiritual heritage; and Seven Stories, a series of photographs by women and girls from Iraq, Jordan, and Syria. At the Gallery’s offsite venue, UrbanScreen, I Spy a City from Flavourcel collective shows colourful animations of Surrey sights.
Post sponsored by Surrey Art Gallery