Ed Video Brightens Up Downtown Guelph

From Arts in Guelph - September/October, 2007

Long a force on the local arts scene, Ed Video Media Arts Centre is well known for its role in facilitating the production of media art in Guelph and the surrounding community. By providing the equipment, workshops and exposure to local, national and international discourses in video and media art production, Ed Video offers a supportive environment in which media artists can develop their skills. Ed Video also has a history of hosting some very interesting, educational and often thought-provoking events such as the two planned for the fall of 2007 in downtown Guelph.

One is the launch of the McCleave Space Mission on Saturday, October 26. For five years, the McCleave Suitcase Gallery has been traveling around Canada holding impromptu art shows from their collection of suitcases. They have their own call for submissions and curate dozens of small artworks into the suitcases. The contents of these suitcases are then displayed in public areas like parks, public squares, sidewalks, or parking lots as the group drives their minivan across Canada.

This year, the McCleave Suitcase Gallery will be initiating their "Space Mission." Ed Video has arranged for the official launch of the original McCleave suitcase to take place in Guelph. The suitcase will be full of art works from over a dozen Canadian artists and will be blasted into orbit to be the first art gallery in space. The launch will take place in St. George's Square in downtown Guelph, and politicians, military personnel, and physicists are invited to speak about the importance of the Space Mission to art, sovereignty, and defence.

Another innovative Ed Video event this fall is Edifying Edifices, an ambitious show of captivating video installations and projections on the main street of downtown Guelph. Local media artists have been invited to "light up" Wyndham Street with site-specific video installations in store windows and projected on buildings. The show will take place October 30 to November 3, coinciding with both Hallowe'en and the Guelph Festival of Moving Media. The themes of the installations are varied but include architecture, physical recovery, harnessing intuition, water, and the physical properties of projected video.

These intriguing events promise to add some life to the streets of downtown Guelph this fall. Watch for more details as they develop. For more information, contact Ed Video at 519-836-9811.