What Bodies Know Exhibition Recap
Around this time last year, we were preparing for our COVID-safe workshops, and during that period we had the opportunity to collaborate with several peer workers.
Peer workers are people, often artists, who support programs at WePress. We value their lived experience and recognize that they contribute not only through their labour during the workshops or art kits built, but also through the energy, insight, and creativity they bring to every event.
From November to February, the Surrey Art Gallery invited WePress to present an exhibition, What Bodies Know, featuring peer workers who collaborated with us last year, including Mike McNeeley, Chuck Melnychuk, and Sandrine Umuhoza.
Mike combines photography and painting to document the lives of people in his community along the streets of the DTES, particularly on Hastings Street. His work reminds us of how his neighbourhood is grounded in care, resilience, creativity, laughter, and moments of solidarity, while also acknowledging the ongoing struggle against displacement and violence. His paintings reflect the creativity and fullness of his community, portraits filled with vibrant colours and life.
Sandrine offers a glimpse into his world through playful experimentation with hair, rich textures, soft pastel pink and blue hues and interactive elements. Their artwork reflects not only their own identity but also the community around him, including his ancestors. Through his work, Sandrine celebrates the creativity of Black hairstyles and queer playfulness, inviting people to interact with their artworks, while sharing an important reminder: “do not touch my hair”.
Chuck also places an emphasis on highlighting specific body parts through “body-mapping,” inspired by the medicinal tattooing of the ice mummy Ötzi from over 5,000 years ago. Their work, created with cyanotypes and mixed media, captures a faint blue map of areas of their body where the spectator is invited to walk through and pause to appreciate its history, a body that holds pain with the same strength that it holds ancestral knowledge and healing.
In January our co-director veto led a conversation, holding space for Mike and Sandrine to speak more in detail about their work and the thoughts and process behind it.
The three artists place an emphasis on capturing bodies and identities in ways that reflect a specific history and geography, while also showing us joy, rage, strength, innovation, hope, and healing—elements that transcend time.
We thank Mike, Chuck and Sandrine for trusting us with their vulnerability and their work, the Surrey Art Gallery for creating this opportunity, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this project and the series of workshops that brought together the artists in this exhibition.
Photo credits: Pardeep Singh and Dennis Ha
