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World-class artist creates next installation for Victoria International Airport

Artist Charles Campbell hopes his work will make people contemplate the possibilities of the future
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An artist’s rendering of what Charles Campbell’s work ‘Time Catcher’ will look like. The art will be placed in the newly expanded Lower Passenger Departure Lounge in Spring 2020. (Victoria Airport Authority photo)

Victoria Airport Authority (VAA) introduces a new artwork, “Time Catcher” by Charles Campbell, to be displayed in the Lower Passenger Departure Lounge as part of an expansion project at Victoria International Airport.

Campbell is a renowned Jamaican artist, partly educated in the UK and Canada, and has exhibited works around the world, including at the Xchanges Gallery in Victoria. He was formerly the Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Jamaica.

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The installation is a suspended armada of three-sided wooden boats in the shape of a 36 foot diameter ring. Each vessel’s shape is based on the design of ships and canoes, with any two of the identical sides looking like a boat’s hull. The third, enclosing side, connects the boat to natural objects such as seed pods or the body of a bird. The artist intends the vessels to be seen as “metaphorical carriers of ecological and cultural memory” and to “elicit multiple connections to both the natural and manufactured world.”

A verse from science fiction writer, Octavia Butler’s “Paradise” will be written in Morse code, on each boat.

“I hope to create a space that allows people a moment of pause and wonder, one to consider how their movements connect to larger patterns and to contemplate the possibilities of the future,” said Campbell.

The selection process for the art started in August 2018 with a Call to Artists on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. VAA received almost 100 applications of interest and 47 proposals from local artists. The winning submission was selected by the VAA Art at the Airport Advisory Committee.

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Charles Campbell was selected from five finalists, his budget is $100,000 and completion of the work is expected to coincide with the completion of the expansion project in spring 2020.

“Charles’ art proposal captivated the committee from the start,” said Geoff Dickson, VAA president and CEO. “We were extremely pleased with the level of interest for this call and by the talent shown from the shortlisted artists. The final decision was not easy.”

Victoria Airport Authority is a not-for-profit authority that has managed the safe and secure operations of the Victoria International Airport on behalf of the surrounding communities since April 1, 1997.

VAA has two tiers of art: Tier one – the acquisition of major art works chosen through a competitive process and tier two that displays art on a rotating basis from local artists and groups.

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To date, the Victoria International Airport’s commissioned collection features eight pieces of artwork on display, which includes four First Nations carvings. A program for rotating art in the terminal building has also been developed and a feature art wall was built into the design of their terminal building expansion.



nick.murray@peninsulanewsreview.com

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