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Contemporary Art Gallery

555 Nelson Street
Vancouver, Canada
Open from Tuesday to
Sunday 12 pm → 6 pm

Admission always free
ArchiveExhibition
22 Jan 21until2 May 21

Christine Howard Sandoval

A wall is a shadow on the land

Alvin Balkind Gallery and offsite at Yaletown-Roundhouse Station

A mound-like sculpture made from layers of adobe mud and strips of tape. A postcard with an image of a figure dressed in a religious habit is wedged into the mound, leaving only the torso visible.

Christine Howard Sandoval, The Eaters (detail), 2020. Photo: Rachel Topham Photography.

In a meditation on land, language and architecture, Vancouver-based Obispeño Chumash and Hispanic artist Christine Howard Sandoval re-considers the insidious meaning-making power of the archive in her solo exhibition A wall is a shadow on the land. Through the use of adobe, a desert building material made from clay, sand and soil and deeply connected to her own family’s histories and practices, Howard Sandoval considers how land is and has been inhabited, the stories embedded in it and the potential futures it holds.

Howard Sandoval reconfigures the typology of Spanish mission architecture in a series of new adobe sculptures and large-scale drawings. Brought together with archival documents and the artist’s own fourth-grade school report on the California missions, she works to dislodge the deep-rooted colonial fictions that narrate the histories of her ancestral homeland in Alta California. A wall is a shadow on the land points to the ways in which narratives of colonial erasure are rehearsed within the public school system, and how the ongoing physical presence of mission sites on unceded Indigenous land in the western US are markers of the systemic proliferation of the imperial project and its persistent conditions today.

Co-curated by Julia Lamare and Kimberly Phillips

This exhibition is generously supported by the Audain Foundation.

Christine Howard Sandoval’s Archival — for Rosario Cooper and my 10 year old self is installed offsite at Yaletown-Roundhouse Station from January 22 – August 22, 2021. It is presented in partnership with Capture Photography Festival and the Canada Line Public Art Program, InTransit BC.

Biography

Christine Howard Sandoval is an interdisciplinary artist of Obispeño Chumash and Hispanic ancestry. Her work challenges the boundaries of representation, access and habitation through the use of performance, video and sculpture. Howard Sandoval makes work about contested places, such as the historic Native and Hispanic waterways of northern New Mexico; the Gowanus Canal, a Superfund site in New York; and an interfacing suburban-wildland in Colorado. Howard Sandoval has exhibited nationally and internationally at The Museum of Capitalism (Oakland, CA); Designtransfer, Universität der Künste Berlin (Berlin, Germany); El Museo Del Barrio (Bronx, NY); and Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, NY). Her first solo museum exhibition debuted at The Colorado Springs Fine Art Center in May 2019, during which time she was the Mellon Artist in Residence at Colorado College. Sandoval has also been awarded residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Triangle Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute (NY) and an MFA from Parsons The New School for Design (NY). She is currently Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Art at Emily Carr University (BC).

Three large scale drawings made of adobe mud and paper are suspended against the corner walls of a gallery space. In the middle sits a sculpture consisting of two mound-like forms on tripod stands.
Three large scale drawings are suspended against the two sides of the corner wall of a gallery space. The drawings of architectural forms are made with striations of brown adobe mud on white paper.
One large scale drawing is suspended against the wall of a gallery space. The drawing of an architectural form is made with striations of brown adobe mud on white paper.
A sculpture in a gallery space. The sculpture consists of two moud-like forms made of brown adobe mud and strips of tape, each sitting atop a metal, tripod-like form.
An exterior view of a train station displaying Sandoval’s work printed in vinyl. The work includes a collage of scanned archival documents on one side of the station and scanned drawings on the other.
An exterior view of a train station displaying Sandoval’s work printed in vinyl. The work depicts an illustration of a Fransiscan friar on the left and on the right an enlarged drawing of a doorway.
An exterior view of a train station displaying Sandoval’s work on the glass facade printed in vinyl. The work depicts a collage of scanned and enlarged archival documents, including written notes.

Documents

Program guidepdf1mbProgram guide offsitepdf1mbExhibition materialpdf531kbEssay: "CHRISTINE HOWARD SANDOVAL: A wall is a shadow on the land," Julia Lamare and Kimberly Phillipspdf4mb

Talks & Events

A mound-like sculpture made from layers of adobe mud and strips of tape. A postcard with an image of a figure dressed in a religious habit is wedged into the mound, leaving only the torso visible.Event · OnlineTalkChristine Howard Sandoval in conversation with Kimberly Phillips
6 Feb 21·11:00 AM
A cover of a book titled Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir and Altar for Broken Things by Deborah A. Miranda. It shows a photograph of a child in a cowboy costume riding on a pony. Event · OnlineReading Deborah A. Miranda
14 Mar 21·11:00 AM
A still image of Christine Howard Sandoval working in the studio. Event · OnlineCAG ReadsChristine Howard Sandoval presents Deborah A. Miranda and Ariella Aïsha Azoulay
30 Mar 21·7:00 PMuntil8:30 PM
EventVideo VisitsSpring 2021
22 Aug 21
A mound-like sculpture made from layers of adobe mud and strips of tape. A postcard with an image of a figure dressed in a religious habit is wedged into the mound, leaving only the torso visible.
Three large scale drawings made of adobe mud and paper are suspended against the corner walls of a gallery space. In the middle sits a sculpture consisting of two mound-like forms on tripod stands.
Three large scale drawings are suspended against the two sides of the corner wall of a gallery space. The drawings of architectural forms are made with striations of brown adobe mud on white paper.
One large scale drawing is suspended against the wall of a gallery space. The drawing of an architectural form is made with striations of brown adobe mud on white paper.
A sculpture in a gallery space. The sculpture consists of two moud-like forms made of brown adobe mud and strips of tape, each sitting atop a metal, tripod-like form.
An exterior view of a train station displaying Sandoval’s work printed in vinyl. The work includes a collage of scanned archival documents on one side of the station and scanned drawings on the other.
An exterior view of a train station displaying Sandoval’s work printed in vinyl. The work depicts an illustration of a Fransiscan friar on the left and on the right an enlarged drawing of a doorway.
An exterior view of a train station displaying Sandoval’s work on the glass facade printed in vinyl. The work depicts a collage of scanned and enlarged archival documents, including written notes.