Past Residents
Past Resident2015: Manitoba Arts Council
Theo Sims
Theo Sims is a visual artist whose installations often focus on the juxtaposition of the familiar and the everyday with a contextual subversion. Sims’ projects play with space as a conceptual tool. Theo fuses wit and humor with the emotional, the ephemeral and the personal. Several of his recent activities as both artist and curator lend themselves to participatory projects or collaborations with other artists, curators, musicians, writers and even politicians.
Theo Sims has exhibited across Canada with solo exhibitions at The Rooms, Newfoundland; Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver; and Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary. His group exhibitions include the Montreal Biennale; Pretend: Theatre and Video, PlugIn ICA; and Ghost Dance, Ryerson Image Centre. This year Sims installed an outdoor installation in Lethbridge, Albert; a solo exhibition at the Tom Thomson Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario; and a site-specific installation for WINDOW, Winnipeg. He has exhibited in numerous exhibitions internationally and his work is reviewed or featured in publications such as Canadian Art; Abridged; C Magazine; Circa; The Irish Times; The Sunday Times; The Globe & Mail, Border Crossings; BlackFlash; The New York Times and Maclean’s Magazine.
Residents from Canada
Past Resident2015: Edge of Arabia and Art Jameel
Ayman Yossri Daydban
Ayman Yossri Daydban’s work is often a reflection of his life, focusing on issues of identity and belonging. While his work may appear to be political, as it focuses on the deconstruction of the Palestinian national narrative, the work is deeply personal and has little agenda beyond his search for a sense of self. ‘Daydban’ means watchman, a mask that observes the viewer and its surroundings while at the same time remaining detached from them. There is an unbridgeable opposition between the watchman and what is being watched. The two sides seem to be in different worlds while in close proximity, producing enormous tension.
Ayman Yossri Daydban (born in Palestine, 1966) lives in Saudi Arabia. Daydban’s solo exhibitions include Identity, Selma Feriani Gallery, 2011; I am Anything, I am Everything, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, 2012. His work has been included in group exhibitions such as The Language of Human Consciousness, Athr Gallery, Jeddah; Brunei Gallery, London, 2008; The Future of A Promise, Venice Biennale 2009 & 2011; Transition, Istanbul, 2010; Terminal, Dubai, 2011, We Need To Talk, Jeddah, 2012; and #COMETOGETHER in London, 2012. Additional projects include Bravery of Being out of Range at Athr Gallery, Jeddah and subsequently at Sultan Gallery, Kuwait; The State at Traffic Gallery, Dubai; Tesselation at Galerie Zilberman and The Aftermath curated by Basak Senova at Akbank Art Center, Istanbul; and Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam at the British Museum, London. Daydban launched his first public art project Change on billboards across Dubai and Sharjah during Art Dubai, 2013. Daydban’s work is in the permanent collections of the British Museum, Al-Mansouria Foundation, the Abdul Latif Jameel Foundation, BASMOCA, Salsali Private Museum and the Greenbox Museum. He has been in residence at La Cites des Arts in Paris; Cuadro Fine Art Gallery; Traffic Gallery, Dubai; and Ashkal Alwan, Beirut.
Residents from Palestine
Alasdair McLuckie
Alasdair McLuckie’s practice adopts meticulous process to explore mythology, ritual, and rebirth using drawing and craft with a strong formalist aesthetic sensibility. Each work’s detail translates into a dense visually symbolic language that expresses the infinite possibilities of creation, and unifies process, material, image, and concept. A broad folk narrative traditionally underpinned each project, and recent works have also explored materiality and the creative process, while continuing to explore the relationship of tribal arts to modernism and contemporary Western art traditions.
Alasdair McLuckie (born 1984) graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne with a BFA in Painting in 2007. Solo exhibitions include Ten Cubed, Melbourne, 2013; Murray White Room, Melbourne, 2012 and 2010; Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, 2009. Group exhibitions include Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin, 2014; and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Heide Museum, Melbourne, and Art Basel, Hong Kong, all 2013.