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Salmon Arm Secondary student selected for artist residency, preparing for upcoming exhibition

Artist Sergs Oriana wants to share the story of his family’s immigration experience
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Salmon Arm Secondary student Sergs Oriana was selected for the 2023 Marie Manson Virtual Artist Residency with the Salmon Arm Art Gallery. (Damen Archard photo)

Shuswap District Arts Council is pleased to announce that Sergs Oriana has been selected for the 2023 Marie Manson Virtual Artist Residency.

This three-month residency is conducted in-person and online with the curatorial team at Salmon Arm Art Gallery, and features the artist’s process and practices in preparation for the exhibition ‘Intersection,’ planned for September 2023.

Sergs is a Grade 12 Salmon Arm Secondary student and will be graduating in June. He was interested in this residency because he wanted to share the story of his family’s immigration experience, especially the complexities of becoming a Canadian citizen.

Sergs participated in the 2022 Salmon Arm Art Gallery exhibition Achievement Unlocked and received the Curator’s Award. He works in a variety of media, exploring different surfaces for oil paint and, more recently, layering stamping and printing. Sergs anticipates using these same processes to build works for the paper-based exhibition this fall, and plans to use some of the mountains of immigration paperwork as his materials.

This virtual artist residency is in partnership with Secwépemc knowledge keeper Louis Thomas. Thomas is part of the curatorial team, and shares land-based knowledge with the artists as the residency progresses.

“This opportunity gives the artist a chance to work through experimental processes with the guidance of folks who have been in the cultural sector for many years,” said curator Tracey Kutschker, “and gives the Art Gallery a chance to get to know and share the individual artists’ processes as they work through the development of their art forms.”

Sergs’ artwork will be featured in ‘Intersection,’ which will run at the gallery from Sept. 23 to Nov. 2, 2023. This paper-based exhibition will feature works by artists with intersectional identities, telling their story of navigating barriers and discrimination, as well as highlighting progress and successes.

Submitted

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