Unbreakable - Northeast Mini Galleries Exhibition

Unbreakable is an exhibition curated by AJ Kluck for the Northeast Mini Galleries, located in communities throughout Calgary’s northeast quadrant. Calgary or Moh’kinstsis or Wicispa Oyade or Guts’ists’i has a complicated history. A history that has seen colonization and broken treaties, a history that has seen love and joy, floods and droughts, creation and destruction. We are all Treaty people here in Treaty 7. We all have a responsibility, and the ability to create a relationship with the land. We have a responsibility to make this world a little bit of a better place. We have the responsibility to ask ourselves: How do we show up in reciprocity? How do we show up in caring and thoughtful ways? How do we take care of each other, ourselves, the water, the rocks, the plants and animals? The answer lies in the relationships we build.

We develop deep and long-standing relationships through small daily efforts — we must ground ourselves and find our strength in these. The artists chosen in this exhibition are living these truths in clear and actionable ways. Leading in their own style. The artists’ identities and experiences encompass a wide and vibrant range of realities. In this collection of artworks there are artists who are Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, people who are guides in childbirth, people who are disabled, people who are immigrants, people who are teaching art classes to their communities, people who grew up loving and memorizing their streets, people who rescue and foster animals, queer people, people who are celebrating their culture with vulnerability and care — everyone shares a beautiful history of having a meaningful relationship to the northeast.

Artists have the job of explaining the world around them. Their job is to communicate their experience, to show their experience of life through art. This exhibition is a glimpse into the deep, and diverse reality of people living in community, as neighbours, as Treaty people. It is about connection and support and care. It is a celebration. It is a small representation of the lives of those who are bound to a place, the northeast and, ultimately, bound to each other.

lim̓lm̓t

— AJ Kluck

Unbreakable is an exhibition curated by AJ Kluck for the Northeast Mini Galleries, located in communities throughout Calgary’s northeast quadrant. Calgary or Moh’kinstsis or Wicispa Oyade or Guts’ists’i has a complicated history. A history that has seen colonization and broken treaties, a history that has seen love and joy, floods and droughts, creation and destruction. We are all Treaty people here in Treaty 7. We all have a responsibility, and the ability to create a relationship with the land. We have a responsibility to make this world a little bit of a better place. We have the responsibility to ask ourselves: How do we show up in reciprocity? How do we show up in caring and thoughtful ways? How do we take care of each other, ourselves, the water, the rocks, the plants and animals? The answer lies in the relationships we build.

We develop deep and long-standing relationships through small daily efforts — we must ground ourselves and find our strength in these. The artists chosen in this exhibition are living these truths in clear and actionable ways. Leading in their own style. The artists’ identities and experiences encompass a wide and vibrant range of realities. In this collection of artworks there are artists who are Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, people who are guides in childbirth, people who are disabled, people who are immigrants, people who are teaching art classes to their communities, people who grew up loving and memorizing their streets, people who rescue and foster animals, queer people, people who are celebrating their culture with vulnerability and care — everyone shares a beautiful history of having a meaningful relationship to the northeast.

Artists have the job of explaining the world around them. Their job is to communicate their experience, to show their experience of life through art. This exhibition is a glimpse into the deep, and diverse reality of people living in community, as neighbours, as Treaty people. It is about connection and support and care. It is a celebration. It is a small representation of the lives of those who are bound to a place, the northeast and, ultimately, bound to each other.

lim̓lm̓t

— AJ Kluck