Featuring the work of artists from London and across Canada, Front by Front explores issues the impact armed conflict has across society, and the changes or adaptations made by people in their daily lives in such an atmosphere.
The exhibition emphasizes the many “fronts” established in a battle. The works portray conflict and its outcomes in different, less obvious ways, breaking with tradition to portray not glory or “winning,” but personal tension, deindividuation, and displacement.
Artists whose works are featured in the exhibition include: Barb Hunt, Sophie Jodoin, Susan Schüppli, Ambereen Siddiqui, Althea Thauberger and Anna Wieselgren. Hunt’s sculptural work Fodder comments on chaos and the body by using worn-out army fatigues while Wieselgren’s installation is created from bedsheets used in a Tibetan refugee centre. Thauberger’s large-scale photograph documents the work of Canadian women soldiers in Kandahar. Jodoin’s video examines the insidious nature of violence encouraged by the wearing of wartime gear, while Schüppli brings Cold War tensions home through the often decorous, foreboding images of the Diefenbunker. Siddiqui’s video Lying in Wait similarly evokes feelings of claustrophobia and fear, though this time experienced in an urban centre targeted by acts of terrorism.