Megan Dickie & Diana Burgoyne: Klang & Squeal
Curated by Jessica Demers
Welcome to Klang & Squeal, an environment designed for interaction, exploration
and play. Most of the works in the space are meant to not only be looked at, but also
touched: rolled, shaken, re-shaped, inverted, drawn upon or erased. In many cases
this interaction produces sound: a clang, clink, squeal, groan, hum, sigh or something
in between. By touching the work you become a performer, animating it and thereby
completing it. Rather than being a passive “consumer” of art, your participation is an
essential part of the work itself.
Megan Dickie and Diana Burgoyne use technologies that are simple, yet produce
fascinating results that spur on further inquiry and exploration. In the work of both
artists, the body plays a central role as a medium for performance and inquiry. They
invite us to discover the truth of the work for ourselves, through our own direct,
tactile experience.
Diana Burgoyne describes herself as an electronic folk artist. Her Sound Drawings
combine simple electronic components with traditional art materials. Her work is
direct and utilitarian, blurring the line between machine and object d’art. In doing so,
she challenges traditional notions of both drawing and sculpture. Burgoyne’s work
explores how technology influences our social interactions and structures, and its
increasing interface with the human body.
Megan Dickie’s multi-faceted aluminum sculptures are humorous subversions of
Buckminster Fuller’s use of the triangle in architecture. Dickie explains “By making
triangle-based structures that are fluid instead of rigid, playful instead of serious,
absurd instead of functional, I am upsetting the stability of his inventions.” Dickie’s
creative process is extremely labour intensive and innovative. She tests and re-tests
her initial idea as she creates unique geometric forms without a blueprint or formula.
Her interest in interactivity is less about performance, and more about a way to
animate and enliven her works. She is interested in discovering what can be done with her pieces beyond her initial intentions.
The interactive nature of Dickie and Burgoyne’s work breaks through the social norms of gallery/art/viewer relationships, offering a much more dynamic and fun experience of art. Klang & Squeal and associated programming (performance by Thomas Loh, and electronic art workshops with Burgoyne), also exposes artists and audiences in our region to diverse artistic practices, enriching our cultural community.
Artist Biographies
Diana Burgoyne’s performances and installations have been exhibited in Montreal, Toronto, New York, France, Holland, Estonia and New Zealand. She has been the artist in residence at the Surrey Art Gallery’s Tech Lab, The Banff Centre, The Western Front, the Roundhouse, and in San Francisco’s Exploratorium, as well as having participated in several new media conferences. She was awarded the 2009 Fleck Fellowship by the Banff Centre for the Arts and has taught a class entitled “Creative Electronics” at Emily Carr University of Art and Design since 1998. Diana has recently returned from a residency in New Zealand where she and collaborator Raewyn Turner worked on ReSense: the smell of place at the CoLab in Auckland.
Megan Dickie has exhibited her work across Canada and has had recent exhibitions at Grunt Gallery in Vancouver, the Nanaimo Art Gallery, the Kenderdine Art Gallery in Saskatoon, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Ministry of Causal Living, and Deluge Contemporary Art in Victoria, BC. She was also the recipient of a Canada Council emerging artist creation grant in 2004 and a BC Arts Council grant in 2007 & 2009. Megan completed a BFA in printmaking from the University of
Calgary in 1997 and received a MFA in sculpture from the University of Saskatchewan in 2002. She currently teaches sculpture at the University of Victoria.