Binocular Parallax: Recent Projects from Seattle and Vancouver, BC

Co-Curated with Jonathan Middleton. Consolidated Works, Seattle. September - November 2003

Artists:Vancouver, BC - Fiona Bowie, Hadley Howes & Maxwell Stephens, Evan Lee & Mohamed Somani, Tim Lee. Seattle - Leiv Fagereng. Jenny Heishman, Bret Marion, John Seal, Dan Webb

Plus: 20x20 Polaroid Project

Polaroids by 20 Seattle artists and 20 Vancouver artists

Consolidated Works’ Director of Visual Art Meg Shiffler joins Vancouver’s Western Front curator Jonathan Middleton to co-curate a large-scale exhibition marking the grand opening of Consolidated Works’ new 6,000 sq. ft. visual art space. The exhibition features recent projects in painting, installation, photography, sculpture, and video by emerging and mid-career artists shaping the cultural identity and visual art landscape of each city. It invites viewers to experience contemporary practices from Seattle and Vancouver, beginning a dialogue between these neighboring but previously disconnected communities.

Separated by 117 miles and distinct borders, the Seattle and Vancouver art scenes have developed independently. The curators explore how proximity, local histories, and conditions such as government funding, real estate pressures, and market forces have influenced artistic production. Seattle artists often blend figurative and narrative traditions with new media and graphic formats, while Vancouver artists continue to prioritize photography and video, partly due to earlier international successes and limited studio space for painting and sculpture.

To capture the immediate energy of these communities, Meg and Jonathan invited 20 artists from each city to take a series of nine Polaroids on any subject. The resulting works provide an intimate, spontaneous glimpse into the practices of young artists and the vibrant, evolving conversations shaping the West Coast’s visual culture today.