The Equivalence of Alloyed Gold

“The Equivalence of Alloyed Gold '' was a year-long experimental commissioning and exhibition process originally hosted by Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC) in 2022. The project featured work by nine artists:

Stephanie Creaghan

Andy Slater

Gillian Dykeman

Chandra Meltingtallow

Ashna Jacob

Aislinn Thomas

Anne Macmillan

Tamyka Bullen

Dayna Danger

Using the children’s game of “Telephone” as a formal conceit, “Alloyed Gold” questions the extent to which the work and themes exhibited in national galleries can represent a collective artistic consciousness while maintaining their own authority. The chain of artistic creation began with a text description of Carrara Marble Quarries, Cava di Canalgrande #2 by Edward Burtynsky, focusing on formal components, contexts, themes, and histories, and without identifying factors such as artist name, title, medium, or context. The first artist created a new artwork based on this description. She then described her new piece to the next artist in the chain, who translated her didactic description into a poetic text, again devoid of specifics like name or medium, and passed that on as the prompt for the next artist. The daisy chain of interpretation continued, resulting in nine new, visual and text-based works.

The format of “Alloyed Gold” is built on translation; building accessibility into curation and recognizing exhibition work as a form of translation and creation, so it was a natural expansion of the project to work with and learn from disabled artists including blind, low-vision, and deaf artists who could bring their expertise to the project.

The exhibition is designed to be entirely accessible, with visual and audio descriptions created by Kat Germain, and with critical consultation from two of the artists in the project, Tamkya Bullen and Andy Slater.