Exhibition Dates: Sept.28 – Oct.2nd, 2022
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 10:00am – 2:00pm
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
The artworks presented in this exhibit have been created by various members of our community who participated in a workshop led by Juno Avila-Clark. “I hope sharing our work will engage the larger community and hopefully spark inspiration in others to create change.” ~ Juno Avila-Clark
We need radical change to happen in an incredibly fast amount of time to solve the climate crisis. However, many people are resistant to transforming our culture because they cannot visualise an alternate future, and/or the alternate versions of themselves who live there. From my perspective as a non-binary individual, I believe trans people have inherent knowledge about transitions and creating positive change through sometimes uncomfortable or difficult experiences. We have the power to show our community how change, while sometimes difficult, can undoubtedly bring about positive outcomes. I’m optimistic that sharing this knowledge could motivate others to make changes in their community or in their lives as we transition into a new world.
Artist Bio
Juno Avila-Clark (he/they) is an emerging multimedia visual artist whose work focuses on community, connections between people, identity, and the environment. He hopes to create art that has the power to bring people together and process complex emotions in a healthy way. He is passionate about climate justice, and has worked for Sustainabiliteens (Metro-Vancouver’s climate strike organization) as a co-leader of the former arts and messaging working group, among other roles, such as facilitating for the New Westminster region. They have been working with Sustainabiliteens since spring of 2019 and helped organize several large protests during the fall of that year, including one Greta Thunberg attended and spoke at, and another which reached numbers of at least 100,000 people. Juno has also planned artistically-focused protests such as a funeral for our future event which took place in front of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change’s office in Vancouver, and led a flash mob in Pacific Centre mall on Black Friday in 2019. He continues to work with Sustainabiliteens today, taking on different roles as needed.
Juno hopes that his perspective as a young trans person could contribute a unique artistic voice to the conversation and help others view change towards a just world as a positive using their lived experience with transition.
