In 2003 Hariri Pontarini Architects won the Ontario Architects Association Award of Excellence and the National Post Design Exchange Award of Merit for the MacLarenArtCentre in Barrie. This fall we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our award-winning building with a special lecture by architect Siamak Hariri at our Legacy Dinner, in tandem with a survey of projects by this internationally- renowned architectural firm. Both events are part of Carnegie Days, our annual festival of art and language.
Each year, Carnegie Days focuses on a different theme. 2009 highlighted the library and book culture. In 2010, the festival embraced story-telling and visual narrative. For 2011, featured artists draw from the media and popular culture to explore and question how these records shape public memory. Carnegie Days 2011 also brings attention to Barrie and our award-winning building and its origins as a 1917 Carnegie library.In addition to Hariri Pontarini Architects: 18 Years, 18 Projects, our solo exhibition by emerging Montreal artist Juan Ortiz-Apuy, entitled Disruptions, features sixteen recent language and library works that collectively explore systems of knowledge. Six renowned cartoonists originally from Barrie with successful careers as animators and illustrators return to their home turf to collaborate on a project that recalls their shared adolescence at Barrie Central Collegiate in the 1990s, while examining the culture of comic art. A public art project using billboard sites in Barrie, a panel discussion with the artists, an artist publication and a series of artist talks and workshops augment their exhibition at the Gallery.
Our winter exhibitions shift focus from the urban centre to the regional landscape. In a series of intimately-scaled egg tempera paintings developed over eight years, Simcoe County artist Joanna McEwen sensitively portrays the small, rural churches that grace Oro-Medonte Township. The delicacy of her renderings is mirrored in the meticulous large-scale pencil drawings by London, Ontario artist Kelly Wallace, whose pictorial records reveal environments subjected to constant change.
Illuminating our exhibitions, MacLaren programming offers artist talks, panels, gallery tours and related publications. Hands-on art appreciation activities include art classes for children and adults, seasonal art camps, after-school youth workshops, artist-led outreach programmes in the schools and in the community, and Sunday art-making activities for families. With the generous support of individuals, local businesses, service clubs and government agencies, we are building a creative future for our city. At our Legacy Dinner this fall we pay tribute to the generosity of community leader and philanthropist Scott Elliott, a key supporter of MacLaren’s education programmes, and we launch our 2011 Annual Campaign. We urge you to support your art gallery. Your gift enables us to provide programming that inspires creativity in all members of our community.
There are so many good reasons to visit the MacLaren. Carnegie Days is just one of them. Find out more at www.maclarenart.com
Carolyn Bell Farrell
Executive Director