I don't know about you, but I feel like May is rocketing past! Here at the Gallery we've been making great progress on many fronts. We held our Annual General Meeting on April 19, at which nine Board Members were elected to represent the membership. We welcome back Barry Magrill as our President, and Winnie Wang as Treasurer, as well as Frank Xiao, Adnan Khan, Colin Chau, James Leung, Alex Li, Joan Smulders and Marcus Wong. Earlier this year, Sue Halsey-Brandt was reappointed the City of Richmond Council representative to the Board. We're thrilled to have the expertise and enthusiasm they all bring to the Gallery. We also said goodbye to two Board members—De Whalen, who has left to pursue more public ventures, as well as Past-President John Richardson, who made great contributions to the Gallery (and provided a wealth of institutional history) for eight years. We thank them both for all of their contributions over the past few years. Moving forward, each of the current Board members has volunteered to participate on a committee, including Fundraising, Community Relations, Volunteers, and Membership, and have started to work on new initiatives which will be rolled out in the coming weeks and months.

At the AGM, and subsequently via email, we invited our members to complete a short survey. The response rate has been very good and we're compiling the feedback you've sent in order to serve you better. It seems many of our members would like to see an artist talk or other event added to the AGM, and an overwhelming number of respondents said they are happy with the range of exhibitions and educational programming, as well as our new practice of providing extended label information, wall quotes and translations. If you would like to add your voice, you can still contribute your comments here. We will be looking at all of your comments as we continue to grow and improve.

Last month, prior to her opening, we hosted an artist workshop for Gallery volunteers with Brenda Joy Lem. Lem led participants through a tour and hands-on art workshop where participants were asked to bring along some family photos in preparation for the workshop, so they could photocopy, collage, draw and write a family story within a larger drawing. The results were posted in the Gallery to encourage the general public to participate in a similar art activity that is ongoing in the Hope-Smith Art Lounge. Lem prepared some paper with silkscreened borders for the Art Lounge, and asked Gallery visitors to add their own family stories with text, drawings and watercolour pencil drawings on the pages provided. At the end of the exhibition, Lem will collect all the drawings to bind into a book that will commemorate the exhibition in Richmond. Lem's exhibition, Homage to the Heart opened to the public on April 17. Her show features a series of prints that explore her family history, recounted in the words of her father and aunt, and through family and archival images. Brenda's opening reception was also the kick-off event in our new membership benefits program, which offers Members-only pre-opening tours with the artist, as well as discounts on event registration such as workshops and children's summer art camps, and publications. And speaking of membership, stay tuned! There could be an iPad2 in it for you. Details will be coming in June...

With all that is happening at the Gallery—great exhibitions, new education programs, workshops, art camp, tours, the TD Canada Trust supported School Art Program, the RBC Foundation-sponsored Family Sunday Program, and so much more, it's a great time to show your support for the Gallery. Every dollar you contribute goes directly to the exhibitions and public events that you enjoy, and helps us demonstrate community support to our corporate and public funders.

See you at the Gallery,

Lynn Beavis
Director

Mis-under-stand-ing(s) ponders society's need to find connection, and conformity, the current trend for achieving connection. Marketers tap into this need making us all believe we must have the latest gadget, image, product, piercing, tattoo, or face being left behind. What does being a unique individual actually look like anymore?

I don't know. Social norms and constructs, though artificially fabricated, bind us into behaving in a peculiarly similar manner. With the aid of social tools such as cell phones, apps and websites, humans feel eerily comforted by the make believe.

Using satire, Mis-under-stand-ing(s) investigates the trend towards cloned global behaviour. The pursuit for uniqueness is expensive, and ironically, costing individuality. Using exaggeration, multiples and scale, my work provides opportunity for viewers to examine their own role in a repetitive reality based on the current need to stay connected.

Biography
Angela Gooliaff studied at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and lives in Vancouver. Having recently completed a residency at The Banff Centre, Gooliaff continues her exploration of parody, satire and vulnerability—more specifically, the silent space between comfort and discomfort. She expresses her themes using biological subjects.

The Gallery has begun an online archive of videos in connection to each exhibition. For most of our exhibitions, the artists are interviewed for a video which plays in the Hope-Smith Art Lounge. These short videos are a great addition to our exhibitions, as visitors are able to hear about the artists' work and practice, directly from the artists. The Gallery has recently added these videos to YouTube, so that anyone, anywhere can view these interviews produced by the Richmond Art Gallery.

View our latest artist interview
Subscribe to our channel

Podcasts!

I wanted to let everyone know about an exciting new program I have been working on for the Gallery and for the general public: podcasts. The Gallery started a new teen program in April 2011 in collaboration with the Richmond Media Lab and Richmond Public Art Program to create podcasts available for public download. A podcast is an audio broadcast that can be streamed on the internet or downloaded onto your personal mp3 player. For Gallery podcasts, an iPod is available to borrow from the Cultural Centre front desk for visitors to use, or visitors may download the podcast onto their own mp3 player.

Starting in April, and continuing throughout the year, a small group of enthusiastic Richmond teens are working closely with Lauren Burrows-Backhouse of the Media Lab and myself, to share their opinions and interpretations of both Art Gallery exhibitions and Public Art works. A podcast will be made every month or so of either a Richmond Art Gallery exhibition, or a Richmond Public Art work. After a tour and discussion with the exhibiting artist and/or Gallery or Public Art staff, the teens are let loose to develop a script of their responses to the artworks or exhibition, which are then recorded as a podcast and made available to anyone visiting the gallery in person or online.

This May, we finished our first podcast ever, which is a response to Brenda Joy Lem's exhibition Homage to the Heart. This podcast is currently available for free download on our website. The next podcast will be of a Public Artwork that listeners can access online and listen to while at the site of the artwork. All future podcasts will be available for download, or you can subscribe to our our podcast feed for automatic updates. Keep posted to hear more about Richmond's art!

Kathy Tycholis
Education and Public Programs Coordinator

Brian Joe has been the Gallery's Family Sunday Facilitator since 2009, working with teens and children to provide engaging art projects for families in the Gallery each month. Brian is leaving the Gallery to pursue a Masters in Museum Studies in Ontario and enjoy summer travels with family. Thank you for all your work at the Gallery Brian, you will be missed!

Welcome to Kimberly Baker : Gallery Intern

The Gallery welcomes our Summer Intern, Kimberly Baker, who comes to us from UBC through the B.C. Arts Council Co-op Placement Special Project Assistance program. Kimberly will be working at the Gallery from May—August 2011 to research and prepare an education resource package on contemporary art for Secondary Art Teachers to use in the classroom. Welcome Kimberly!

May 7 and 8 marked this year's Doors Open, a city-wide event where Richmond's arts, culture and heritage are celebrated. The Gallery was busy with large crowds throughout the weekend, as they participated in tours offered by Mandarin-speaking volunteers, an interactive art activity in the Hope-Smith Art Lounge, and heard historical tales by local author Jim Wong-Chu. On the evening of Saturday May 7, the Gallery participated in the first "Imaginary Enclave", which featured performances throughout the Cultural Centre. For this event, author Jim Wong-Chu related local Chinese-Canadian history to smaller crowds throughout the evening for several intimate performances.