Worldrenowned artists open new gallery in small community of Enderby, B.C.
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller transformed a warehouse in Enderby to showcase installations
If you've visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York or other renowned art galleries worldwide, there's a good chance you've encountered some of the installation artworks created by Janet Cardiff and her husband George Bures Miller.
After decades of having their creations showcased across the globe, this Canadian duo has finally found a permanent home to exhibit their art in B.C.'s Shuswap region.
The Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse took five years to come to fruition. Itopened on July 29 in Enderby, a community with around3,000 residents located about 80 kilometres north of Kelowna.
The couple bought and repurposed the 50-year-old space situated at 507 Granville St., which was formerly the showroom and warehouse for a furniture store.
"When we came across this space, we just fell in love with it it's two buildings with 9,600 square feet each and with high ceilings," said Cardiff.
Sharework with local community
Cardiff grew up in Brussels, Ont., a small village with less than 1,000 residents located 152 kilometres west of Toronto, while Miller was born in Vegreville, Alta., a town of around5,600 people situated 93 kilometres east of Edmonton.
Over the years, Cardiff and Miller have gained international acclaim for their immersive multimedia sound installations, some of which have been displayed at prestigious venues like the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Their career reached its peak in 2001 when they represented Canada and received two prizes at the 49th Venice Biennale, one of the world's oldest international cultural exhibitions, dating back to 1895.
Since 2008, Cardiff and Miller have called the Shuswap region home, and Miller said they've always wanted to have a space to share their artworks with the local community.
"We both grew up in small towns we were influenced by those cultural events that happened in those communities.
"We're hoping that showing our work here can possibly do the same for young people living here, showing them that there are different types of works, and maybe they can find a future doing something," said Miller.
'Pushing the boundaries'
The museum currently features four installations, including The Marionette Maker created by Cardiff in 2014.
Thepiece, which was displayed in various international galleries including the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, features a full-scale vintage caravan housing robotic characters including a silicon mannequin modelled after Cardiff herself creating a haunting atmosphere.
"We created a little diorama of a landscape where there's a tiny little white trailer," she said. "There's a sense of Gulliver's Travels here, there's a sense of Sleeping Beauty, there's a sense of all sorts of strange tales that are going on."
Another exhibit, TheMurder of Crows, created in 2008, immerses visitors in a unique auditory experience with audio speakers placed on chairs and stands and hanging from the ceiling.
Cardiff describes it as a "dense auditory dream" that evokes emotional responses from visitors.
"Some people have cried during this piece, and other people are going like 'I don't understand what this is,' because it's so far removed in ways for some people from their idea of what art is.
"We like pushing the boundaries of what can be art, so I hope people have fun with it," she said.
The museum also houses The Forty Part Molet, a virtual choir installation created in 2001, and The Poetry Machine created in 2017, which is a small vintage organ with several old speakers situated around it.
It plays hundreds of snippets of Leonard Cohen's recorded poetry.
The couple has promised to add more of their artworkto the museum collection in the future. They also plan to expand the museum by adding a library and a caf, making it a welcoming space for tours, especially for schoolchildren and university students studying arts.
The museum is currently open from Friday to Sunday every week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a standard admission fee of $10 and a reduced fee for students.
With files from Megan Turcato
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