Bill Burns: The Great Exchange Residency
Bill Burns, like Trylowsky, has created a project that prompts an examination of parallel economies. Burns’ ongoing research includes The Goat, the Salt, the Oil, a performance series that positions global trade as an art practice; at Griffin’s residency from December 8 to February 28, 2022, titled Three short films and several songs about Donkeys, Cowboys, Truckers and Container Ships, he will research a further speculative iteration of this project, activating the site of the Vancouver Harbour and producing a series of short films, this time proposing the trade of red snapper for goat’s milk, yogurt for honey, organizing a shipment of Nepalese salt for olives or other foodstuffs in Vancouver. The residency includes a photo study of Vancouver dockyards, trains and freight yards, drawings—“pre-documents”—of potential future trades and short Super 8 film diaries of Burns’ everyday life in a pandemic, under the regime of advanced global industrialism. The soundtrack will be comprised of traditional tunes about farms, donkeys, truckers, collaboratively produced poems, Georgian chant and country music with partners in Argentina and the artist’s family created for the residency.
Bill Burns’ work about advanced industrialism, donkeys, goat’s milk, salt, safety gear, and honey bees has been shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Mendes Wood Gallery, Sao Paulo; 303 Gallery, New York; the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.He has published artists’ books with publishers in Canada, Germany, USA, UK, Austria, and Denmark. His most recent titles include A Book About the Power 100, published by Verlag Mark Pezinger, Vienna (2018) and Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us, published by YYZ BOOKS and Black Dog Publishing, London, UK (2016). His artists’ editions are included in collections at Tate Britain, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Getty Center, Los Angeles. Mr Burns is also Artistic Director of the Dogs and Boats and Airplanes Experimental Children’s Choir. The choir has produced live performances and audio works at festivals in Australia, Argentina, the UK and Canada.
Bill Burns studied under Mowry Baden at University of Victoria, Canada and with Gerard Hemsworth and John Latham at Goldsmiths College, London, England. He is represented by MKG127, Toronto; C4 Contemporary, Los Angeles.
