Closing Reception: ‘Opera Obscura’ and ‘Your Absence is Mineral’
Date:
Tue, Oct 6th, 2026Time:
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Description:
The Opera Obscura and Your Absence is Mineral offers a first look at a collection of artworks featuring works by Mary Kavanagh and Sarah Steeves, respectively.
Opera Obscura is a large-scale installation by Canadian artist Mary Kavanagh. For three decades, Kavanagh has investigated sites shaped by nuclear colonialism, militarization, and industrial extraction, tracing how histories are materially inscribed in land, atmosphere, and built environments. In this new work, she turns her attention to one of the defining institutions of civic life: the library.
At the exhibition’s centre are approximately 2,000 deaccessioned books sourced from the annual collection review of the University of Lethbridge Library. Spanning disciplines, languages, and eras, each volume has been individually hand-inked and arranged in a dense gridded field. Serial and austere, the installation evokes both catalogue and cenotaph. Gilded titles, embossed surfaces, library markings, and traces of use remain partially visible beneath layers of ink. A tension between erasure and preservation extends through a companion series of black-on-black photographs in which individual volumes are isolated, lit, and slowly disclosed.
Your Absence Is Mineral is a solo exhibition by Vancouver-based artist Sarah Steeves, marking the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition.
Steeves’s work rings with a subtle but persistent truth: humans are not separate from the Earth; we are intrinsically linked to it. The exhibition includes ten sculptures, a video work, and a durational installation. Steeves weaves intricate pieces of copper into textile-like forms, which are then immersed in a saline mixture and left to crystallize. These mineral interventions—specifically salt crystallization—reproduce processes of geological weathering that elicit transformation. By mirroring the ways natural forces break down rock, the work draws a parallel to how humans experience psychological weathering through accumulated grief and trauma.
Don’t miss this chance to discover new artists and connect with the gallery! Guests are warmly welcomed to connect with fellow community members, enjoy light refreshments and beverages, and celebrate the launch of these wonderful exhibitions together. Admission is free.
Venue:
Vernon Public Art Gallery
Address:3228-31st Avenue, Vernon, V1T 2H3
Cost:
freeTicketing and/or registration:
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