Curators

Amanda Cachia was born in Wollongong, NSW, Australia. She received her BA/BCA from the University of Wollongong (1999), and an MA in Curatorial Studies from Goldsmiths College, University of London (2001), which was funded by a $15,000 scholarship from the Queen’s Trust for Young Australians. This was followed by internships at the Museum of Modern Art and the Dia Centre for the Arts in New York. Other internships included Tate Modern, London, National Gallery of Australia and Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia. In 2004 she immigrated to New York City from Australia and worked as Assistant Director at Cynthia Broan Gallery in Manhattan and Program Manager at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey until 2006. Prior to that, previous positions included Curator of the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale, NSW, Australia (2003 – 2004), Director of the Blake Prize for Religious Art one of Australia’s oldest and most established art prizes, and Regional Arts Youth Project Officer, coordinating a tour around regional NSW of art created by youth, both in 2002. Amanda co-curated YOUR SKY with Robyn Donohue for Gigantic Arts Space in New York in 2005, funded by Advance and the Australian High Commission, NY. Other curatorial projects have included New England Picture: In what they paint I see (2004) for the New England Regional Art Museum and Puncturecapital (2001), displayed at the Asian Australian Arts Centre (Gallery 4a) in Sydney. She was hired as Assistant Curator for the Dunlop Art Gallery in January 2007 and in June, was promoted to Curator. In November 2008, she was promoted to Director/Curator. For the Dunlop, Amanda has curated Abnormal Growth (2007), Garden Folk (2008) and touring exhibits Pandora’s Box (2008) and Diabolique (2009).

Jeff Nye was born in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. Jeff is a curator and a visual artist. He received an MFA from the University of Regina (2007) and a BFA from Concordia University (1998). His paintings, performances, and installations have been exhibited in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec. Jeff has presented and published papers about socially engaged art practices for national and international conferences and journals including “Shifting Borders” (2007) and the “International Journal for the Arts and Society” (2006). Jeff was hired as the Assistant Curator at the Dunlop Art Gallery in September, 2007. He also teaches painting and drawing as a sessional instructor at the University of Regina. Jeff is a founding member of Lane Level Projects, an artist collective devoted to alternative exhibition practices for contemporary performance, multimedia, and installation artists. Lane Level Projects was awarded with the City of Regina’s Mayor’s Arts and Business Award for Innovation in the Arts in 2008. His curatorial and studio projects have received funding from the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

CURATORS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks first and foremost must go to the Saskatchewan Arts Board, who funded this project through a Special Initiatives Grant and a Culture on the Go grant. Particular mention must be made of Doug Townsend and Noreen Neu for their generous assistance. The Dunlop Art Gallery is also grateful to our other core funders, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Regina Public Library. Our touring venue partners include the Art Gallery of Swift Current, Art Gallery of Prince Albert, Estevan Art Gallery & Museum, Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, and The Chapel Gallery, North Battleford. We thank Griffith Aaron Baker, Dean Bauche, Michael Brokop, Brenda Barry Byrne, Kim Houghtaling, and Heather Smith for their support. Dunlop Art Gallery staff have worked very hard in order for this exhibition to debut, so special mention must be made towards Joyce Clark for completing loan agreements and arranging shipment; to Corey Bryson for all transportation and installation and to Sonia Parra for her administrative assistance developing contracts, preparing cheque requests, organizing the opening reception and many other related tasks and duties. We also thank the installers who assisted with a grueling 2-week installation: Colby Avram, Ramses Calderon, Brock Egeto, and Jeff Morton. The facilitators will lead the questions from the public: Margaret Bessai, Brock Egeto, Terri Ekvall and Janell Ranae Rempell, under the new supervision of Catherine Livingstone, Curator of Education & Community Outreach. Our gratitude is extended to the Regina Public Library’s Jeff Barber, Library Director, and Julie McKenna, Deputy Director, who have supported our work on this project from day one.

We would like to thank the countless gallery directors, curators, community leaders and curatorial peers who assisted in the research phase of this great curatorial endeavour and to all 70+ artists we visited in our journey. We thank Randal Rogers and Christine Ramsay for lending their support and sitting down with us to hash out the Mind the Gap! partnership. We extend thanks to the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Jim Searson for loaning artwork from their collections for this exhibition. To the 29 artists and one collective who were selected to represent Mind the Gap!, it has been an honour working with you all: Judy Anderson, Lindsay Arnold, Amalie Atkins, Joël Carignan, Marc Courtemanche, Wally Dion, Brandon Doty, Randal Fedje, Clark Ferguson, Rob Froese, Gabriela García-Luna, Chris Campbell Gardiner, Erin Gee, Todd Gronsdahl, Troy Gronsdahl, Laura Hale, Kyle Herranen, Sarah Jane Holtom, Rob Jerome, Sandra Knoss, Adam Lark, Nick Louma, Mark Lowe, Nancy Lowry, Dakota McFadzean, Judy McNaughton, Jennifer McRorie, Tim Moore, Turner Prize*, and Stacia Verigin. We thank Tim Moore for his commissioned work for the cover of this catalogue, and Turner Prize* for their commissioned performance at the opening reception.

The Dunlop Art Gallery also wishes to thank the Saskatchewan Publishers Group for their funding assistance towards this catalogue and website, and to the four commissioned writers who write so passionately and prophetically about our province: Bonnie Dunlop, Matt Hall, Alice Kuipers, and Carle Steel. For design of both the catalogue and the website, we thank Danielle Tuchelt and Dwayne Dobson from COMBINE Design & Communications, and for publishing, Friesens, Winnipeg. We are grateful to Anne Campbell for her editorial expertise and to Don Hall and Trevor Hopkin for photography from the University of Regina.

Amanda Cachia & Jeff Nye