Vanishing Point
Jarod Charzewski and Colleen Ludwig

January 18 – February 23
Reception Friday 18th January at 7.30 pm (artists in attendance)
Artists Talk: Saturday 19th January, 2pm

Goodbye world as we knew it. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. The world climate is changing rapidly, and no one knows what’s going to happen or how to plan for it.

Artists Jarod Charzewski and Colleen Ludwig have worked together for 5 years. Although they’ve never felt strongly that they belong to different cultures, they were confronted with a gulf in their perspectives on the Manitoba landscape in preparing for the show at aceartinc. Jarod, who was born in the North End of Winnipeg, can recall minute details about his hometown. Colleen has only the perspective of Google Earth upon which to rely, since she has never been there. However, since both artists are concerned about ecosystems, the same questions occurred to them: What is the state of environmental health of southern Manitoba? What is changing here and how does this fit into the overall condition of the planet? These questions led the artists on an environmental, cultural, social and political investigation that plays off of Ludwig’s curiosity and Charzewski’s familiarity of the area.

In the coming years, water rights and sustainable agriculture will be in hot debate. Permafrost and the ice flow on Hudson Bay were once reliable elements on which life in the North was based. As the average yearly temperature of northern Manitoba rises, do harsh unapproachable areas become viable real estate for agriculture and tourism? Will climate change push migration north or south?

Lake Winnipeg is a prominent natural feature that occupies the middle of the province. It is considered by many to be the world’s gateway to future resources but that future looks bleak. The lake is suffering from high levels of phosphorous and nitrates generated by four provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario) and four U.S. States (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota). Are these politically designated territories relevant in the face of environmental crisis on a world scale? Can we imagine governments collaborating to protect what is left of our environment?
Artists Biographies:
Colleen Ludwig

Colleen Ludwig received her MFA in Time and Interactivity from the University of Minnesota in 2005 and her BFA in Film and Television from NYU in 1989. Her artwork is a fusion of technology, sculpture, moving images, and performance. She engages the audience through multiple senses to highlight the constant negotiation between self and society. Her audience is drawn in to her work visually, and then engages with it on a physical level.

Ludwig performed ContactContact at both the San Francisco and Austin Maker’s Faire in 2007. In 2006, her interactive video installation Trajectory, was shown at Front Room Gallery in Saint Paul. She mounted several shows with artist Jarod Charzewski, including Instinct at Consolidated Works in Seattle and Air Traffic at Zone Gallery in Kansas City. They developed a methodology to create separate adjacent installations that relate to each other in thematic and physical ways. She is currently an Assistant Professor of New Media at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

The variety of Ludwig’s experience illustrates her diversity as an artist and educator. While working as a producer and editor, she and a team of specialists traveled to the Galapagos Islands and China in 1999. Ludwig was among the earliest editors to post video on the Internet. During this time, she also pursued her career as an artist, combining techniques into multi-media puppet shows and object-animation videos. She performed a monologue at the Pantages Theater in Minneapolis as part of a seminar taught by artist Alfredo Jaar. In 2002, she and her husband, Bruce Charlesworth, were commissioned by 3-Legged Race, to create/perform an object-theater work called Glimpses of Protoplasm. The language of puppetry, as a multi-media and sculptural form, continues to influence her work.

Jarod Charzewski

Jarod Charzewski’s art examines phenomena that exist in nature. Jarod grew up in the inner city of Winnipeg and spent summers in rural Manitoba; thus, he combines his street sensibility with prairie landscape aesthetics. From this intuitive source jarod merges natural elements with human design and, as in reality, it is not always a graceful fusion.

Prolonged contact with extreme environments serves as inspiration for works of art. The visual properties of mist in the Carmanah Valley rainforest or dust from the desert conditions of the Alberta Badlands made contributions to his career beginnings. Jarod observed these substances and other sporadic undulating bodies as symbiotic products of their environments. Their behavior sensitivity is particularly interesting as they respond to their immediate climate – moving and changing with sunlight, temperature, and humidity. The ability to simulate these and other ephemeral properties effectively is the risk his work takes.

Recently Jarod was awarded a grant from the Puffin Foundation for the environmental content of his installation titled Tides: Everglade. He obtained a BFA from the University of Manitoba (1996) and an MFA from the University of Minnesota (2005). Currently Jarod holds the position of Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Charleston in Charleston South Carolina.

The artists acknowledge support from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and The College of Charleston in Charleston South Carolina

aceartinc. gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the board of directors, associate members & donors, our volunteers, The Manitoba Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts, The Winnipeg Arts Council, The Winnipeg Foundation, WH and SE Loewen Foundation, The Family of Wendy Wersh, The Sign Source, Kromar Printing Ltd., and Mike Carroll Design.

all photos by Scott Stephens, courtesy of aceartinc.