Inside Out: Canadian Trinidad and Tobago Collaboration

Ray Dirks, director of the MHC Gallery in Winnipeg, in collaboration with Trevor Bryan, curator from the Voix Gallery (formally the Southern Art Gallery) in Trinidad, organized Inside Out, a multi-cultural visual arts collaborative project between Canadian and Trinidadian artists.

The five Canadian artists from diverse cultural backgrounds involved in the project were Isam Aboud (Sudanese Canadian), Karen Cornelius (American Canadian who grew up in Africa), Ray Dirks (Mennonite Canadian), Ruth Maendel (Mennonite Canadian), and KC Adams (Aboriginal Canadian).

The Canadian artists were asked to draw on their Canadian cultural experience to inform the work that they created.  They were then paired with Trinidadian artists in Trinidad.  A joint exhibition was held in April 2006 at the Voix Gallery in Sand Fernando, Trinidad, along with a series of collaborative workshops.

Cornelius exhibited a video titled Hound. Walking one’s pet dog is an urban first world concept. Walking the hound is a daily repetitive task. It doesn’t matter what the weather the dog must go out.  This particular relentless demand on a person’s  time is unique to first world societies and taken for granted.  People in many countries find the idea of walking a dog an absurd concept.