MYCELIA 2023 Graduation Exhibition and Catalogue Launch

The title of the 2023 Graduation Exhibition, MYCELIA, is an homage to this year’s community of graduating artists. Mycelia are complex underground networks of fungal threads that sprout mushrooms and other fungi. They form large webs which are essential to the nourishment, symbiosis, and communication within and between organisms. Like mycelia, the networks built by students at NSCAD University foster strong support systems, enable connection and nourish creative growth.  

Fungi are complex and metaphorically rich; they are resilient under unfavorable conditions, they can absorb toxins and regenerate their environments for new growth, they form symbiotic relationships with other species, and they tend to defy classification. As students, many of us spent part of our years at NSCAD studying in isolation and continue to persevere through ‘these unprecedented times’. Through the reciprocal exchange of ideas, concerns, solutions, and grief, the artists in this year’s graduating cohort have expressed the collective experience of making art right now, which is itself an act of resistance to the conditions we find ourselves in. 

The synchronicity of themes in the work being made at NSCAD speaks to our shared concerns, the differences in our experiences, and the way our work grows together naturally. Like the mycelia found in the soil, the graduates have formed a community that continues to grow but will remain connected at the roots no matter what the future holds for each of us. This community is part of a larger ecosystem at NSCAD. Our work grows out of this ecosystem; it moves in similar rhythms, it challenges, it expands, and it continues the conversation. The graduates are part of this conversation and belong to the continuously growing network of ideas that forms our ecosystem. 

I have had the distinct privilege of curating this group exhibition of artists whose work I hold the highest respect for. In MYCELIA, I wanted to give my colleagues one last chance to leave an impression behind on the place that has had such an impact on the trajectory of our lives. Curating encompasses many different roles; organizing, communicating, and looking at a lot of art (the best part). As curator, I am tasked with finding threads of similarity in the work submitted, and pulling those threads together into a tapestry that translates the ethos of the graduates. This was the most magical part of doing this job, at some point I felt as though the show was curating itself, because so much of it was already woven together as a result of our interconnectivity. This interconnectedness is possibly one of the most extraordinary parts of coming to an art school like NSCAD University. Our relationships are founded on a mutual curiosity for the magic that is art-making, and this is something that cannot be taken for granted. 

Please join us Wednesday 17 May @ 5-7pm for a reception to celebrate the graduates and to launch the 2023 Graduation Catalogue!

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Posted Apr 13, 2023