New Balance

AKA/PAVED Billboard Space (424 20th Street West, Saskatoon)
Co-presented by AKA, Hamilton Artists Inc., and PAVED Arts
July - August 2019

Price’s New Balance series features pattern and waste plastics in an aggregate of image, material and structure to link human and geologic time, consumer culture and ecology. Composed of deconstructed, used athletic shoes, these sculptures are made of grimy but still vibrant layers of high- tech textiles, foams and rubbers. Recalling striations of Earth’s crust, this work specifically references its uppermost layers as they are embedded with environmental pollutants including textile materials and residues from their manufacturing. The textile industry being the world’s second most ecologically harmful industry, positions the environmental significance of athletic shoes at odds with the aura of fitness with which they are marketed. Substituting stone with shoes and mimicking the patterns of Earth’s layered geological timeline, New Balance signals the disconnect between human pursuits of self-improvement through sport and our physical dependence on ecological health.

This installation is part of the National Billboard Exchange between Hamilton Artists Inc., AKA Artist-run and PAVED Arts in Saskatoon. The three-way collaboration also includes billboard projects by artists Catherine Blackburn at Hamilton Artists Inc. from June 2019 to August 2020 and Janet Wang at AKA/PAVED in July through August 2020.

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Meghan Price has exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent shows at the Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), Fiberspace Gallery (Stockholm); AKA Artist-run (Saskatoon); Untitled Art Society (Calgary); the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design (Asheville); the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (Brandon); and Blackwood Gallery (Toronto). She has held residencies at the Icelandic Textile Center (Blönduós); the Museum of the Flat Earth (Fogo Island); Artspace (Sydney); the Scottish Sculpture Workshop (Lumsden); and the Banff Centre. Price holds a degree in Textile Construction from The Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles (2003) and an MFA from Concordia University (2009). She lives in Toronto and teaches in the Textile studios of OCAD University and Sheridan College.

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About our partners:

AKA Artist-run is a non-profit artist-run centre, run by a board of Saskatoon-based artists and cultural workers. Funded by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments, AKA pays fees to artists to support the research, creation, and exhibition of visual art work. A centre for emergent practices for artists at any stage of their careers, AKA provides space and support for critical, safe, and open exchange and is committed to creating space for experimentation, artist-led research, and self-determined direction. AKA aims to build connections between artists, local communities, and national and international audiences, posing questions without knowing the answers.

PAVED Arts is a non-profit, artist-run production centre and gallery that exists to advance knowledge and practices in what we call the PAVED Arts; Photography, Audio, Video, Electronic and Digital. In other words, we help artists and independent producers make and exhibit their work.