Origin Stories (2023)

WHAT'S ON

Canadian Museum of History 

xusi lax̱a at̕łi
as part of The Witness Blanket

February 6 – May 5, 2025
Gatineau, Quebec

xusi lax̱a at̕łi (2019) – a collaboration with Kwakwaka’wakw artist Carey Newman – is now on view at the Canadian Museum of History as part of The Witness Blanket exhibition. The Witness Blanket contains hundreds of items reclaimed from residential schools, churches, government buildings and traditional and cultural structures from across Canada. It stands as a national monument to recognize the atrocities of the Indian residential school era. It honours the children and the Survivors. It symbolizes ongoing reconciliation.

xusi lax̱a at̕łi (meaning “rest in the forest” in Kwakwala) is intended as a place to rest and reflect on the truths shared.

The Image Centre

Kelly Richardson: Origin Stories

January 22 – April 5, 2025
Toronto Metropolitan University, Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall

Kelly Richardson’s Origin Stories is a metaphysical exploration that transcends traditional photography, transforming extinct species into crystalline, diamond-like forms. Set in the vastness of cosmic space, Richardson’s digital debris field emits an eerie symphony, symbolizing Earth’s unique place in the universe and humanity’s isolation. The work provokes a powerful question: given humanity’s monumental efforts to find life beyond Earth, how differently would we value species threatened by extinction today if they were discovered on another planet? Richardson challenges us to reflect on our connection to life, the impact of climate change, and the extinction crisis we are both witnessing and contributing to. In collaboration with the Awi’nakola Foundation, the artist emphasizes the urgency of reconsidering our relationship with the planet and prioritizing its preservation.

Fondation Giverny

The Erudition

On view now
Montréal, Canada

The Fondation Giverny pour l’art contemporain is pleased to present its activities with a first exhibition of works from the Giverny Capital Collection. With a selection of works and installation pieces by Eduardo Basualdo, Edward Burtynsky, Sophie Jodoin, Folkert de Jong, Adad Hannah, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Magali Reus, Kelly Richardson, Marc Séguin, Bill Viola, Hajra Waheed, this exhibition highlights the principles of temporality, memory, and the construction of the image.

JUST FINISHED

Departmental Institute of Fine Arts

Echoes of Life
Memories of a Fragile Ecosystem

From 16 to 23 November, 2024
Cali, Colombia

Echoes of Life is conceived as a trans-continental dialogue between stories of extractivism and deep connection with nature, going towards bio-anamnesis and celebrating our collective memory. Curated by Ana Aguirre and Diane Drubay. Artists include: Alexandra Crouwers, Ana Aquirre, Be A Stereotype, Dev Harlan, Heliodoro Santos, Juan Ramirez, Kelly Richardson, Rodell Warner, Violet Bond

Buffalo History Museum

10 X 5: 50 Years of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, 1975–2025

Opening September 20, 2024
Buffalo, New York

Founded in 1974, Hallwalls began as a vibrant hub for contemporary art in Buffalo. Since 1975, it has hosted over 6,500 events, featuring more than 9,000 artists across visual arts, music, film, and more.

This exhibition will showcase Hallwalls’ impact on the art world over five decades, highlighting its role in launching significant movements like The Pictures Generation and its ongoing influence in contemporary culture.

Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal

Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything

Feb 9, 2021 – Dec 2, 2024
online (MAC), curated by John Zeppetelli and Victor Shiffman

A veritable audiovisual immersion, this exhibition establishes a dialogue between the œuvre of Leonard Cohen and a selection of artworks from the MAC’s collection.

Lo Pati Centre d’Art

Anthropocenes: narratives about life in the Anthropocene

August 21 – October 20, 2024
Amposta, Spain

Centre d’Art Lo Pati presents a new season of exhibitions on the art center’s building façade featuring the work of Diane Drubay, Claudia Larcher, Kelly Richardson, Theresa Schubert, Yuge Zhou, and Marina Zurkow. From different perspectives, the works offer narratives about life in the Anthropocene, particularly in environments and systems that we ignore but that play a determining role in life on Earth. From the ocean floor to the mines from which we extract the materials that facilitate our digital life, from glaciers to atmospheric phenomena, from forest fires to crowded cities, these works invite us to reflect on our planet, the world in which we want to live and what we will leave to the next generations.

Thames Art Gallery

Kelly Richardson: Odyssey

June 14 – August 11, 2024
Chatham, Ontario

Weaving myth and metaphor with scientific research and digital technologies, Kelly Richardson: Odyssey invites visitors on a journey through time and space in order to reflect on the present—through three large-scale video works. Origin Stories (2023) visualises the current extinction crisis through a seemingly endless field of diamond-like crystals, each of which represents a species lost to resource extraction and climate change. The HALO trilogy (2021) looks to a fiery moon for signs of the conditions we now face after decades of insufficient action. Finally, Pillars of Dawn (2019) brings viewers back to Earth—now hundreds of years in the future, as crystals blanket the planet in a beautiful but chilling representation of cumulative loss of complex life. Together, these three works ask visitors to consider what we truly value, raising an urgent call for humanity to responsibly reconnect with our living planet while time remains.

Origin Stories on set with Metallica (photo: Setta)

NEWS

articles, reviews, interviews, news

Lo Pati Centre d’Art

Lo Pati Centre d’Art

August 21 – October 20, 2024
Amposta, Spain

Centre d’Art Lo Pati presents a new season of exhibitions on the art center’s building façade featuring the work of Diane Drubay, Claudia Larcher, Kelly Richardson, Theresa Schubert, Yuge Zhou, and Marina Zurkow curated by Pau Waelder. The works offer narratives about life in the Anthropocene, particularly in environments and systems that we ignore but that play a determining role in life on Earth.

Thames Art Gallery

Thames Art Gallery

Kelly Richardson: Odyssey
June 14 – August 11, 2024
Chatham, Ontario

Weaving myth and metaphor with scientific research and digital technologies, Kelly Richardson: Odyssey invites visitors on a journey through time and space in order to reflect on the present—through three large-scale video works including ‘Origin Stories’, ‘HALO’ and ‘Pillars of Dawn’.

Buffalo AKG: Collection Handbook

Buffalo AKG: Collection Handbook

Published: September, 2023

A thoughtful selection of works which celebrates the opening of the new Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and provides a flavour of one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of modern and contemporary art. With nearly 400 pages, this new collection handbook presents over 330 works by 265 artists, and will be the Buffalo AKG’s premier souvenir publication for museum visitors and art lovers alike.

Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry

Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry

May 16, 2023, 6pm-8pm
Chicago, USA

The Awi’nakola art team including Rande Cook, Lindsay Delaronde, Kelly Richardson and Paul Walde will share working processes and work-in-progress at the Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry, co-hosted by curator Stephanie Smith and the Gray Center’s Zachary Cahill. Free and open to the public!

CBC As It Happens

CBC As It Happens

Interview and article
April 7, 2023

CBC As It Happens interviews Kelly Richardson and Setta Studio (Director, Tim Saccenti and curator, Dina Chang) about the inclusion of her art in Metallica’s title track music video for 72 Seasons, and worldwide cinema screening.

Metallica: 72 Seasons

Metallica: 72 Seasons

Filmed in Los Angeles, CA, on Feb 12, 2023
Video Premiere Date: March 30, 2023

3 of Kelly Richardson’s works including Origin Stories, Origin Stories (AR) and HALO (III) were featured in Metallica’s music video for the title track off of their new album and film entitled ’72 Seasons’, and part of a global premiere in cinemas in 81 countries.

Rectangle (at Waldburger Wouters Gallery)

Rectangle (at Waldburger Wouters Gallery)

January 20 – February 20, 2023
Brussels, Belgium

Kelly Richardson, Nicolas Sassoon and Rick Silva present REVENANTS, featuring the premiere of ‘Origin Stories’. “We find ourselves in a region between Mars – a planet Richardson previously visited in the monumental installation, ‘Mariner 9’ – and Jupiter…When we return, we’re left with the realisation that while our species’ behaviour is responsible for the current global extinction event, it’s equally capable of producing uniquely imaginative visions. Art alone can’t save the world but the creation of art may very well be considered as the yin to our destructive yang.”

UNSIGNED in DTLA

UNSIGNED in DTLA

now until Dec 31, 2022
downtown LA (DTLA), USA

UNSIGNED is bringing in the new year in downtown LA (DTLA) with a video billboard featuring 100 signatures from women and non-binary artists created to reverse the ongoing negative value of the signatures through their transformation into artworks themselves. A project by Operator and Anika Meier with the support of 100 artists including Kelly Richardson, Nancy Baker Cahill, Auriea Harvey, Addie Wagenknecht, Anne Spalter, Claudia Hart, Sarah Zucker, Rhea Myers, Alexandra Crouwers, among others.

ecologyst: The Awi’nakola Tree of Life Project

ecologyst: The Awi’nakola Tree of Life Project

Kristen Bounds writes about Awi’nakola for ecologyst
Published: October 29, 2022

Comprised of artists, scientists, and Indigenous knowledge keepers coming together through the confluence of their work and research, the Awi’nakola Project is a research group working to keep the rich ecosystems of the some 2.7% of high productivity old growth left in the province intact.