Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise is a rotating exhibit of material culture in two display cases situated in the east alcove on the second floor between the theatre entrances of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. The program consists of five exhibits, including objects and evidence of course outcomes and workshops delivered by special guests (including a Walker Cultural Leader for 2022-23). “Boîte-en-valise” is an expression coined by avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp to refer to the aesthetic value of collecting and assembling.
The small thematic curated exhibitions will have a duration of 4-6 weeks up to 4 months duration. The onsite program will rotate to display cases of the James Gibson Library when possible and will be amplified and celebrated in related communication pieces and image galleries posted to the STAC website.
![Marcel Duchamp_Boite en Valise_copy_sm](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/DSC_9992_Marcel-Duchamp_Boite-en-Valise_copy_sm-1-560x374.jpg?x43147)
Current exhibitions
![EXP BU -Fans Poster for Painting on Fans Exhibition, Blue fan on grey background.](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/EXP-BU-Fans.jpg?x43147)
Ruilin Zhang: Painting on Fans
Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise
SEPTEMBER 16 to October 31, 2024
Opening reception – thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, 6-8 pm
Hallway Gallery,
Second Floor East Alcove between Theatre Entrances
Painting on Fans complements the artist’s research on texts inscribed on 19th-century folding fans in China and Europe, as part of her Major Research Paper. Ruilin Zhang holds an MA in Comparative Literatures and Arts from Brock University. In 2022, she participated in the STAC Curatorial Methods and Principles course’s epidemic-themed online exhibition. Using acrylics and watercolours, she explores diverse cultural elements in both historical and contemporary art. She is currently developing a series of works that blend text with fan paintings.
Artist Statement: My work is inspired by nineteenth-century handmade fans in Eastern and Western cultures. I focus on the fan as a medium featuring both words and images, and use acrylics, watercolours, and modelling gels to paint on folding and fixed-screen fans. I simulate the texture of Chinese lacquer paint through the diluted properties of acrylics to mimic the dynamic forms of mountains and rivers. My intention is to showcase diversity and how fan art can evolve beyond its historical associations – no longer confined to gender-specific use, but instead as an expression that can be freely explored by anyone.
Recent exhibitions
![TOUCH_Cover](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/TOUCH_Cover.jpg?x43147)
![Aigail-Schonewille_th Adaptation by student Abigail Schonewille of the centrefold from "Touch, and Tender Readings.](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Aigail-Schonewille_th-560x457.jpg?x43147)
Touching Books: self-publishing
Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise
April 15 to September 2024
Opening reception – TBD
Hallway Gallery,
Second Floor East Alcove between Theatre Entrances
Following the introduction of a new course in 2024, STAC 3P97 Publishing: Creative Elements and Editorial Process, this exhibition is the first evidence of a creative inquiry and expression in small press publishing. Students will create mini books, material and digital. The reference volume is Touch, published by the SWP in 2023, which the students will creatively reformulate into new expressions of self-publishing.
Two artists – Brandon LaBelle and Annette le Fort – visit their local public library, check out a few books, keep these for a few days then return them. The text and black-and-white photographs included in Touch, and Tender Readings. Books As Archives document this trip to the library. They evoke a sensory experience – tactile, visual, and olfactive – and a meditative performance – walking through the stacks, touching book covers, turning the pages of a book.
In cooperation with the Small Walker Press, participants to this exhibition explore the act of reading in LaBelle and le Fort’s Touch, and Tender Readings. Books as Archives. Learning by doing, they transform their book, create handmade zines, and engage in creative writing. Like them, they focus on the sensory experience: their creative writing is based on their observations of Derek Knight’s video PLACES: A Flâneur’s Eye; under the guidance of artist Geoff Farnsworth, they draw the portrait of a reader; they cut, collage, and assemble their books manually.
The outcome is a shared experience and a collection of handmade books. Like LaBelle and le Fort’s publication, these books illustrate the pleasure of reading and how thoughts expand quickly beyond the task at hand.
Curators: Catherine Parayre and David Vivian
Recent exhibitions
![Photo credit: Christy Mitchell, "Your Life is Back to Front", 2022. art instalation of a chair with a plant on it in a corner with a neighbourhood projected on a wall upside down](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Gallery-4_contrast_adj_sm.jpg?x43147)
![Gallery-5_contrast_adj_th Woman looking into the viewfinder of a cannon camera](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Gallery-5_contrast_adj_th-560x373.jpg?x43147)
Christy Mitchell, Honours Thesis exhibition
Nostalgia and the Desire for Authenticity
Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise
March 22 to April 13, 2024 *held over until April 20, 2024
Opening reception – Mar 22, 2024 from 5-7 pm
Hallway Gallery,
Second Floor East Alcove between Theatre Entrances
STAC graduand Christy Mitchell presents a creative and critical response to the problem of the ephemeral contemporary image. Found and original photographs that provoke an inquiry into our connections to the photographic medium will be presented in an installation by the Museum in the Hallway/ Boîte-en-valise at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts.
The multi-media component of the photographic exhibition will be in operation on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, from 4:30 to 7:30 pm.
![IMG_2 small closeup of crystal in white](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/IMG_2-small-560x760.jpg?x43147)
Abstract Filters
SCLA 5P01 – Comparative Critical theory in Literature and the Arts responds to Les chemins de l’abstraction.
Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise
Jan. 15 to Mar. 16, 2024
Opening reception – Feb.2, 2024 from 5-7 pm
Hallway Gallery,
Second Floor East Alcove between Theatre Entrances
In response to the 2023 exhibition “Les chemins de l’abstraction / Pathways to Abstraction” at the Musée du Niel in the South of France, students in SCLA 5P01 – Comparative Critical theory in Literature and the Arts apply Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of “estrangement” to creative-writing pieces and photographic gestures.
In collaboration with the Musée du Niel, Giens, France (museeduniel.art) and with the support of the M.A. Program, Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts.
museeduniel.com/fr/expositions
museeduniel.com/en/exhibitions
![DSC_0423_Gaston Lachaise, Sculpture Garden, MoMA_sm Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, Museum of Modern Art, New York,](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/DSC_0423_Gaston-Lachaise-Sculpture-Garden-MoMA_sm.jpg?x43147)
Derek Knight: PLACES, A Flâneur’s Eye
Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise
Oct. 27, 2023 to Jan.13, 2024
Opening reception – Oct. 27, 2023 from 5-7 pm
CLOSED for the holidays Dec. 21, 2023 through Jan.01, 2024
Hallway Gallery,
Second Floor East Alcove between Theatre Entrances
Media content on MIH/B-e-v digital displays is viewable during business hours. Not viewable Nov 11-12.
Also presented on single channel displays near MWS 147, in the ground floor main lobby and second floor theatre entrance hallway.
Following the official closing the screening of selected images continues on the monitor beside the Digital Media Lab at MWS 147, on the lower level.
Museums and galleries draw prestige from their architecture, geographic locale or historical significance, while compelling works of art, performances, and public expressions of creativity galvanize the diversity of art both within sanctioned institutional spaces and the ‘non-spaces’ that have the capacity to take on resonance.
Derek Knight: PLACES, A Flâneur’s Eye documents his museum visits over the last decade in North America and Europe.
![20230727_093854-01_sm Stockholm Interior, 2023. Oil and acrylic on panel by Stockholm Interior, 2023. Oil and acrylic on panel](https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/stac/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/20230727_093854-01_sm-560x705.jpg?x43147)
Geoff Farnsworth: Blurs and Vagueness – An exhibition of small paintings
Museum in the Hallway / Boîte-en-valise
Sept. 26 to Oct. 22, 2023
Opening reception – Sept. 26, 2023 from noon to 2 p.m.
Hallway Gallery,
Second Floor East Alcove between Theatre Entrances
An Ontario Culture Days event.
In partnership with 13th Street Gallery’s exhibition of larger paintings by Geoff Farnsworth running Sept. 23 to Oct. 21, 2023.
Demonstrating a spirit for process, experimentation, and colour exploration, Geoff Farnsworth’s small-sized paintings offer a meditative reflection between figurative and abstraction. They are presented here with small drawings.
Rarely shown to the public, Farnsworth’s drawings form a significant part of his work. They often – although not always – represent a more tightly structured environment. When seen together, his paintings and drawings evoke a fluctuating world of everyday realities and the dreamy fantasies of our imagination.
Geoff Farnsworth studied with the Federation of Canadian Artists (Vancouver chapter), Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Capilano University (Graphic Design & Illustration Program), and the Art Students League of New York. After five years in New York City, Farnsworth relocated to Toronto. 4He currently lives and works in downtown St. Catharines. His paintings have been shown in New York City, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Niagara Falls, Norway, Sweden, and Trinidad.
Curators: Catherine Parayre and David Vivian
Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture
The virtual catalogue for the exhibition is available here:
https://exhibits.library.brocku.ca/s/geoff-farnsworth-blurs-and-vagueness/page/virtual-catalogue
All work on display is available for purchase from the artist.
For a list of prices see the list of works.
Visit the artist’s website.