Here to Play

Variation for Sixteen Hands

A triptych image featuring three musicians seated in a performance space. On the left, a young woman in a purple dress plays a stringed instrument, focused on her sheet music. In the center, an older man with long hair plays a woodwind instrument, also concentrating on his sheet music. On the right, a man plays a lute-like instrument while seated. The background includes wooden paneling and decorative elements, contributing to a warm, acoustic ambiance.

Rodney Graham, 3 Musicians (Members of the Early Music Group “Renaissance Fare” performing Matteo of Perugia’s Le greygnour bien at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Late September, 1977), 2006. Three transmounted chromogenic transparencies in painted aluminum light boxes. SFU Art Collection. Gift of Bob Rennie, Roboson, Vancouver, 2026.

Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and Rennie Collection, Vancouver

In this exhibition, play becomes a shared point of departure. For Raymond Boisjoly, Steven Brekelmans, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Rodney Graham, Carole Itter, Khan Lee, Lauraine Mak, and Kathy Slade, it is variously taken up as a methodology, a material approach, or a mode of critique. Music—whether playing it or playing around with the cultures and histories it generates—threads itself through many of the works, as does a palpable wit and an irreverence toward any presumed “right” way of working.

Below the surface statements of these sculptures, paintings, photographs, book and textile works, however, the artists ask larger questions about how, and for whom, we spend our time. They examine the gendering of niche communities. They salvage and re-arrange cast-offs and forgotten collections. They test established systems through acts of proliferation and repetition, pushing them into visual conundrums and glitches. They undermine contemporary society’s relentless pursuit of homogeneity, productivity, and functionality. In Here to Play, play is approached as both a practical and rebellious mode of working—one that foregrounds curiosity, improvisation, and experimentation over refinement or resolution.

The exhibition developed in parallel to the recent acquisition of Rodney Graham’s monumental triptych 3 Musicians [Members of the Early Music Group “Renaissance Fare” Performing Matteo of Perugia’s “Le Greygnour Bien” at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Late September 1977] (2006) to the SFU Art Collection. A quintessential example of the late Vancouver artist’s conceptual strategies and longstanding engagement with historical roleplay, 3 Musicians became a touchstone for the Gibson’s Spring 2026 Curatorial Practicum Cohort. In response, the students assembled a constellation of artworks—some drawn from the SFU Art Collection, others from the local community—to expand on themes present in Graham’s varied practice that they recognized in artists across generations working in our local context.

Curated by Charles Colburne, María Estrada Piñera, and Blqees Zuhair, with guidance from Kimberly Phillips

Generously supported by Coleen and Howard Nemtin and Friends of the Gibson

Event Partners

Supporters

Images (8)

A clear display case mounted on a white wall holds two small rectangular frames. Each frame contains a black panel, and they are positioned closely together. The surrounding wall is plain white, emphasizing the simplicity of the artwork.

An abstract sculpture made of layered translucent materials in vibrant pink and orange colors, depicting a silhouette of a person in a skating pose. The layers create a three-dimensional effect, with the silhouette appearing dynamic and visually striking against a soft white background.

A wall displays a grid of framed artworks, each featuring a diagram of guitar chord shapes. The diagrams consist of a grid with black lines and various black dots positioned on the strings, set against a plain white background. The arrangement includes multiple rows and columns of these chord illustrations.

A sculpture of a drum set made from white paper and wooden elements. The kit includes a bass drum, snare drum, two cymbals, and a tom-tom, all mounted on stands. The drums have a geometric design with hexagon and circular shapes, and the overall structure appears lightweight and artistic. The background is a plain white wall, contrasting with the sculptural piece.

A wooden assemblage art piece consists of various objects, including hats, small boxes, letters, and other items, arranged in a grid on a rectangular board. The artwork is framed with chains on either side and features different textures and shapes, creating a dynamic visual composition.

Three posters arranged on a light gray wall, featuring bold, black text on a contrasting background. The top poster reads "TIME AS A CONTINUED AND CON-," the left poster states "EVIDENCE OF THE CURRENT," and the right poster says "TINUING STRATEGY OF DISTANCE." The floor is light concrete.

A densely populated canvas featuring numerous stylized figures, predominantly dressed in blue with beige accents. The figures appear to be holding children or infants, forming a crowded scene on a textured grey background.

Raymond Boisjoly lives and works in Vancouver. His work has been exhibited in Vancouver at Presentation House Gallery, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Centre A and Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as at Toronto's The Power Plant and Western Bridge in Seattle.

Steven Brekelmans received a Diploma in Media Art from Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design in 1998, and an MFA from the University of Victoria in 2012. Recent solo exhibitions include Half Hours with the Stars, Monica Reyes Gallery, 2024; New Drawings of Bottles, Cans, Hats, Cheese, Sculptures, Posters, Casseroles, Azaleas, Canes, Flags, Trash Bins, Cacti, Glasses, Lighters, Mirrors, Chernoff Fine Art (2019); One Man Band, Dynamo Art Gallery, 2018; Flesh & Blood, Or Gallery, 2015. His recent group exhibitions include, We Do Not Work Alone, Nanaimo Art Gallery, 2021; The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom, Contemporary Art Gallery, 2020; Ionic Bonds, Kamloops Art Gallery, 2019. He has also completed several major works of public sculpture installed in Vancouver (Hinge Park at Olympic Village), Burnaby (Metrotown Skytrain Station), and Port Moody.

Amber Frid-Jimenez is an artist who situates her work at the intersection of art, culture and technology through installations, video, printmaking, code and artist’s books. According to curator Emily Butler, Frid-Jimenez “translates radical moments across art and cultural histories through the lens of contemporary technology, exploring the evolving nature of meaning through algorithmic translation.” Recent exhibitions include Underneath every picture there is always another picture (2024), curated by Denise Oleksijczuk at The Cabinet at Simon Fraser University and Something slips, passes, is transmitted, from stage to stage (2023), a solo exhibition curated by T’ai Smith at Mónica Reyes Gallery in Vancouver. Her work has been included in The Imitation Game (2022) and MashUp (2016) at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which has acquired her work for its permanent collection, and in Mel Chin’s All Over the Place (2018) at the Queens Museum, New York, as well as a large-scale video commission for the Washington, DC Metro. She has exhibited at Griffin Art Projects, North Vancouver; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht; Casco Projects, Utrecht; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; A Foundation, Liverpool; Medialab Prado, Madrid; and Ars Electronica, Linz, among other venues. She has collaborated with curators and artists including Ute Meta Bauer, Emily Butler, Joan Jonas and Lucy Orta. Frid-Jimenez is an Associate Professor at Emily Carr University, where she served as Canada Research Chair in art and design technology (2014–24) and directs the Studio for Extensive Aesthetics. She has taught at MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University and Bergen Academy of Art and Design. She holds an MSc in media arts and sciences from MIT and a BA (Hons) in painting and philosophy from Wesleyan University.

For fifty years, Rodney Graham pulled at the threads of cultural and intellectual history through photography, film, music, performance and painting. Graham was born in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada in 1949 and died in Vancouver, Canada in 2022. He had solo exhibitions at the Serlachius Museum Gösta, Mänttä, Finland (2020); Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany (2017); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands (2017); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2017); Le Constortium, Dijon, France (2016); Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany (2015); Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada (2014); Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada (2012); Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria (2011); Museu D’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2010); Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2009); Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, CA, USA (2004); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, UK (2002); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany (2001); and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria (1999). He participated in group exhibitions such as the Carnegie International (2013), the 13th, 14th and 17th Sydney Biennales, Australia (2002, 2006, 2010), the Whitney Biennial, New York, USA (2006) and the Biennale d’Art contemporain de Lyon, France (2003). He represented Canada at the 47th Venice Biennale, Italy (1997) and among awards he received the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, Toronto, Canada (2004), the Kurt Schwitters-Preis, Niedersächsiche Sparkassenstiftung, Germany (2006), and the Audain Prize for lifetime achievement in visual arts, British Columbia, Canada (2011). Rodney Graham was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2016 for his contributions to Canadian contemporary art.

An interdisciplinary artist, writer, performer, and filmmaker, Carole Itter was born in Vancouver and has lived on the West Coast for most of her life. She began her studies at the University of British Columbia (1958, 1963), and continued at the Vancouver School of Art (1959 – 1963), where she learned from Don Jarvis, Bruce Boyd, and, most notably for Itter, Roy Kenzie Kiyooka. She studied theatre design and drawing at Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome (1964). Throughout her studies, Itter supported herself by working in Vancouver’s only professional theatrical scene shop for several months of each year. This experience made a permanent impression on her artistic practice.

Itter has held solo exhibitions at Western Front (1984), the Vancouver Art Gallery (1991), Or Gallery (1995), grunt gallery (2000, 2007), and the Georgia Art Studio (2022). Her work has been presented in many group exhibitions, including WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2008, which exhibited photographic enlargements from her publication The Log’s Log (1973).

Itter collaborated with poet and novelist Daphne Marlatt to compile Opening Doors: Vancouver’s East End: Strathcona (1979), an archive of oral history of Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood, where Itter and Marlatt continue to live and work. She has also produced a book of short stories, Whistle Daughter Whistle (1982); and three artist books: The Log’s Log (1973); Location: Shack (1986); and Western Blue Rampage (1990). Itter’s films include The Float (1993) with cinematographers Trudy Rubenfeld and Luke Blackstone; A Fish Film (2003), with cinematographer and co-director Bo Myers; Tarpaulin Pull (2006), with cinematographer Krista Lomax; Inlet (2009), with editor Krista Lomax; Please Meet the Geese Who Have Lived Here Forever (2019), with cinematographer and editor Allison Hrabluik; and 400 Miniature Geese on a Moving Inlet (2022), with emerging cinematographer Esther Rausenberg and additional support from Allison Hrabluik. Itter collaborated extensively with composer, pianist, and multi-media artist Al Neil from 1979 until he was in his 80s. Neil died in 2017 at age 93.

Itter was honoured with the VIVA Award in 1989 and the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts in 2017.

Khan Lee was born in Seoul, Korea, and lives and works in Vancouver, BC. He studied architecture at Hongik University, before immigrating to Canada to study fine art at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design; in 2023, he received his MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Lee works in sculpture, installation, performance, media, drawing and painting, with permanent public artworks in Vancouver and the lower mainland. His practice involves experimentation with form and process in order to express inherent relationships between material and immaterial content. He is a founding member of the Vancouver-based artist collective Intermission and is presently a member of Instant Coffee artist collective. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is included in the permanent collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Lauraine Mak is an artist based in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her multidisciplinary practice engages philosophical questions through painting, sculpture, moving image, and installation. Drawing on systems of measurement, repetition, language, and commodity culture, her work examines how structures of logic and value shape contemporary visual experience. Mak holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design and an MFA from Simon Fraser University. She was a guest student at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Rita McBride. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in Austria, Germany, Korea, Hong Kong, and Canada. In 2026, she presented a solo exhibition at Medrar for Contemporary Art in Cairo and will present a solo exhibition at Wil Aballe Art Projects in Vancouver in October.

Kathy Slade is a Vancouver-based artist, writer, curator, editor, and publisher. Slade’s solo exhibitions include Famille Rose, Cabinet Gallery, London (2026); As the sun disappears and the shadows descend from the mountaintops, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2023); Wherever You Go, Monica Reyes Gallery, Vancouver (2020); and This is a Chord. This is Another., Surrey Art Gallery (2018). Her work has recently been exhibited in group exhibitions at institutions and galleries such as The Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver (2026); Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, IE (2020); and Kunstverein Braunschweig, DE (2020). Slade was the curator of the 2019 Vancouver Art Book Fair and was the Founding Editor of the Emily Carr University Press (2005-2018). Together with Kay Higgins, Slade runs Publication Studio Vancouver. In 2009, Slade was awarded the VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts. She currently teaches at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

David MacWilliam is an artist, educator, writer, and curator. For over 40 years, his broad art practice has produced exhibitions, books, essays, and curatorial projects. MacWilliam was born in Halifax, and grew up in Victoria. In 2017, he co-curated Entangled: Two Views on Contemporary Canadian Painting with Bruce Grenville for the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 2018, he curated Robin Peck: Crania at Or Gallery, Vancouver. In 2020, he curated Now Bulletin: Artworks, Letters and Printed Matter from the Garry Neill Kennedy Collection for Griffin Art Projects, North Vancouver. MacWilliam is a Professor Emeritus in the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design where he taught from 1988 to 2017.

Charles Colbourne is a writer and curator based in Vancouver, BC. His practice often looks to an expansive and interdisciplinary definition of literatures. He completed his Bachelor of Arts with a major in English and a double minor in History and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s studies at Simon Fraser University in 2026.

María Estrada is a Mexican filmmaker, film scholar, and art historian based in Burnaby, British Columbia. Her practice bridges curation, education, and film production. She has produced independent films in Canada and Mexico, including Menarca, recipient of a FOCINE grant and official selection for the Tlaxcala International Film Festival (FICTLAX), and has led public film programming in Mexico City as well as community and educational initiatives with the National Museum of Art. She joined the Gibson's curatorial team in January 2026, where she is contributing to the research and development of Here to Play: Variation for Sixteen Hands and Begin Anywhere, opening in Fall 2026. María is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Contemporary Art at Simon Fraser University, where her research explores identity in contemporary Mexican coming-of-age cinema. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Visual Studies with a minor in Film Studies from the University of Victoria, following film and television studies at Centro de Diseño, Cine y Televisión in Mexico City.

Blqees Zuhair is a Libyan architect and multidisciplinary artist interested in curatorial studies, working between Tripoli and Vancouver. Her practice draws on architectural methods, photography, and site-based research to explore how space, memory, and social life are shaped by their surrounding contexts. She engages with archives, built heritage, and contemporary cultural practices to examine how local histories are produced and narrated. She holds a BA in Architecture from ARCHIP in Prague and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.

In 2020, she co-curated Kashkoul of Collective Resistance with Waraq in Tripoli, a publication project developed amid ongoing conflict and pandemic, followed by Shifting Sands project, which commissioned and mentored new work by emerging Libyan artists, architects, and researchers. She later collaborated with Locale on Until We Meet Publication (2021–2023), exploring shared histories and emotional geographies across Libyan and Sudanese contexts. Her residency at Delfina Foundation, London, expanded her ongoing project The Shore is the Land (2019–present), investigating migration, coastal rituals, and memory. Currently she is developing research on archival practices through Archive as Relation; The Land as a Living Dictionary, exploring alternative and decolonial approaches to archiving.