Gallery Feature: The Fifty Fifty Arts Collective

The Fifty Fifty Arts Collective is an artist-run centre on Douglas Street downtown Victoria. You might recognize it by the large horizontal bottle painted on the exterior wall above the door, and definitely by the exciting art exhibitions happening through the front wall of windows.

Fifty Fifty offers space for emerging artists working in all mediums including film, installation, audio, and more. Having an artist-run centre like this in Victoria is hugely valuable both to artists and the art community as a whole. If you're interested in helping Fifty Fifty increase their open hours, contact them to learn more about volunteering to help the cause.

For the 8th Annual Integrate Art Festival, The Fifty Fifty will be exhibiting In Memory by Emma Palm.

Here's Emma's statement about the show:

"On June 26th, 2012, my seventeen year old brother committed suicide. In Memory is a product of love and longing, made in the wake of his death. Two series comprise this body of work in an incomplete attempt to catalogue what he left behind. As if gathering the remains of his life might keep him closer. A sweater, a t-shirt, a wooden box, a pair of soccer cleats - everyday objects elevated to reliquary status. Holy because he touched them. So too are these seven boys (or are they men?) facing the camera. Each hardened and softened in their own way by his passing. Wearing their grief with self-conscious bravery, and wielding more power than they know. Tissue paper maps of what might have been.

I live and work between the prairies of Alberta and Vancouver Island’s craggy coastline. As an artist, I am interested in acts of remembrance, storytelling, collections, and archival processes. My research-based work is grounded in the social exchange of memory and information. So far, my practice includes photography, video and installation.

I graduated from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 2013."

- Emma Palm

Be sure to visit The Fifty Fifty Arts Collective and see In Memory during the 8th Annual Integrate Arts Festival at 2516 Douglas St., just north of Bay Street. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest Fifty Fifty happenings.

Also, Fifty Fifty is hosting the Integrate 2014 after party at The Copper Owl. Find and share the event on Facebook. See you there!