Through the Lattice

In recent years, where and how we inhabit space has been the subject of intense discussion.

For some, lockdown protocols have led to an isolated stay indoors. For many others, safe living spaces have been inaccessible, whether through a requirement to continue working outside of the home, the difficulty of domestic relationships, or the lack of affordable housing altogether. Concurrent with the prevailing importance of sheltered living environments has been a surge in the popularity of home-making hobbies and crafts, for those fortunate enough to access them; a glut of ever-increasingly curated home décor, fashion, and cuisine accompanies a lifestyle centred on the domestic realm.

Through the Lattice reflects upon the recent and ongoing relevance of the lived environment, whether as owned, alienated, or desired. Each of the selected artists foregrounds the role of place, and its itinerant aesthetics of style, ornament, design, pattern, and architecture, in their recent works. Though diverse in their methods, they share a concern with the latent meanings of space, as well as its material construction. 

For some artists, such as David Umemoto or Robert Young, buildings are deeply symbolic places; their practices elicit memories of homes both imagined and real, and meditate upon the relationship between the individual self and the world at large. For others, such as Edra Soto, Parvin Peivandi, or Tiffany Shaw, the rendition of space is an opportunity to imagine how the aesthetics of distinct cultures can inform new interpretations of history, or new ways of inhabiting space. The works of artists such as Alex Morrison and Lyla Rye, meanwhile, attend to the material significance of designed spaces, exposing the desires inherent within the way they are both constructed and perceived.

In its varied interpretations of dwelling, Through the Lattice speaks to the central importance of the built world—as a realm of imaginative dreaming, or as the staging-ground for relations between society, culture, and the environment at large.

Artists: Alex Morrison, Parvin Peivandi, Lyla Rye, Tiffany Shaw, Edra Soto, David Umemoto, Robert Young

View the exhibition guide.

Join exhibiting artist Tiffany Shaw and KPU faculty member and poet Dale Tracy for an Exhibition Tour and Poetry Reading on March 16.

View Dale Tracy's exhibition response chapbook, Lines That Open.

Curator: Rhys Edwards
Origin of Exhibition: Surrey Art Gallery