Images Festival

— Curated by Jaclyn Quaresma

…continued from "Blue I"

5.
Maggie Nelson writes about blue, and she writes about Yves Klein’s blue, and then Sasha Frere-Jones writes about Yves and Maggie and about Yves really only making ultramarine covetable by binding it to other things through a process he developed with a guy whose last name is Adam. Yves didn’t actually make a new colour. Sasha says it’s the process that makes Yves Klein Blue what it is. He reminds me that it’s otherwise purchasable as Medium Adam 25. If one placed Yves Klein Blue, Medium Adam 25, and Ultramarine side-by-each, would they be indistinguishable?

6.
What if the supply chains are never repaired? Their links broken or uncoupled forever? What if YInMn and Cobalt and Bluetiful and Maya Blue and Indigo and Yves Klein Blue or rather Medium Adam 25 or more succinctly Ultramarine can never be made again? What if the only blues we have left to see are no longer CMYK or oil-based or acrylic or wax or powdered but the configured simulacrum RGB on our devices or unmediated AFK?

7.
Blue is both rare and ubiquitous in the environment. There’s the clear sky blue and the turquoise of tropical seas. But blueberries, bluebells, cornflowers, blue morpho butterflies, aquamarine, jeremejevite: These are rare. There is much more red, yellow, brown, and green. According to Dr. James Fox, blue eyes aren’t even really blue. They contain no blue pigment. They are an optical illusion. Just like the sky and the sea, they reflect something that was never there to begin with.

8.
Maya Blue lasts and outlasts bodies, clay, water, and time. Can a relationship, whatever that means, do the same? Does Maggie still think about blue, or being blue, or whatever that book was about?

— This program is part of the suite ok to rest curated by Jaclyn Quaresma. You can find the bibliography here.

Creative Description for the 4:00PM screening of Blue II was developed by the following individuals:

Lead Describer - Kat German

Sound Engineer - Camille Craig

Voices / Collaborators:

The Blue Curtain - Jennifer Brethour

Petal to the Metal - Jessica Watkin

The Taste of The Name - Jessica Watkin

Pale, blue - Scott Yamamura

Blackness = Time ÷ Media = ∞ - Nicole Campbell & Treena Phillip

Topography - Jennifer Brethour

Blue Light Blue - Colette Desjardins

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all.

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us.

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.

The Blue Curtain

Petal to the Metal

Pale, blue

The Taste of The Name

Blue II

(ARTISTS)