Salon Shop presents: Karen Ward | SMALL WORLDS

Thurs May 9th – Sun June 2nd:

Karen Ward | SMALL WORLDS
Opening reception: Thu May 9th, 6 – 7pm
(in celebration of Canadian Mental Health Week, May 6th – 12th)

O liméd soul that struggling to be free
Art more engaged!

Small Worlds is a show of diorama objects, ranging from scenes in pill bottles, up to fish tanks and televisions. The scenes are of isolation, of lone figures struggling within their own small worlds. Larger scenes explore public and private living, the political idea of ‘space’ and its many meanings. Some of the individuals within these spaces struggle to be free. The work as a whole examines and confronts contemporary society as it is and the ways in which it oppresses people who are ‘different’ – these tiny people with blank faces who endure the trauma of contemporary life. The project also parallels Ward’s personal journey through mental illness: isolation, invisibility, and poverty, both spiritual and material. And for Ward, the personal is political: moving, as she has, from isolation to engagement, which is the movement this show attempts to enact. Therefore, she uses images and situations drawn from ideas and perspectives unique to the DTES: public spaces, isolated lives, the dramatic effects of gentrification, as well as mental illness, poverty, addiction and alienation.