[L] Jane Jin Kaisen. Burial of This Order (still), 2022. [R] Curtis Talwst Santiago. Christmas in Durban, 2017.
Exhibition Opening
Curtis Talwst Santiago + Jane Jin Kaisen
September 17
6-9 PM
Please join us on Thursday, September 17, from 6-9 PM, as we celebrate the opening of two solo exhibitions, Curtis Talwst Santiago: worlds, worlds, worlds and Jane Jin Kaisen: Burial of This Order.
Building toward a landmark moment in Contemporary Calgary's evolution—marked by the Centennial Planetarium's highly anticipated transformation—this new exhibition season explores notions of change and world-building throughout all aspects of our lives: social, political, environmental and psychological. Prominent Canadian and international artists engaged in the upcoming projects bring generative perspectives and expansive ways of thinking through our fraught historical moment where ruptures and crises have the potential to lead to new possibilities and ever-evolving realities.
Doors
6:00 PM
Remarks
7:00 PM | AtriumGalleries Close
9:00 PM
FREE to the public. No registration is required.
About the Artists
Photo by: Conrad Mirbach
Curtis Talwst Santiago (he/him)
Curtis Talwst Santiago puts entire worlds inside jewellery boxes. The dioramas, intricate handbuilt scenes no larger than a palm, are where his practice began and where it remains anchored, even as it has expanded into painting, sculpture, public art, and film.
Santiago was born in Edmonton and raised in Sherwood Park, Alberta, to Trinidadian immigrant parents. He grew up between two worlds, Caribbean household, Canadian suburb, and that double consciousness never left him. It shows up in the work: a barbershop scene beside a migration crisis, a basement dance party next to a border. Nothing in the Infinity Series stays safely in one world for long.
He came up through music. As a teenager he performed in an a cappella group, opened for Usher by 18, and earned a CBC Star Maker award at 23 before co-founding the funk band HI PHONIQS. His most recent solo full-length was recorded with Grammy Award winning producer Illangelo. Visual art eventually took over, but the musical foundation never disappeared, rhythm, resonance, and interruption run through everything he makes.
Art had always been there, in Vancouver it just took over. Friends who saw the work convinced him it belonged in galleries and museums, and he started to believe them. A flea market street vendor handed him his first ring box, setting the Infinity Series in motion. A knock on the right studio door led to a three-year mentorship with renowned First Nations artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. He later moved to New York, where a solo exhibition at the Drawing Center marked his arrival on the international stage.
His work is held in permanent collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Lenbachhaus Munich. He is represented by Uffner & Liu, New York, and Martina Simeti, Milan, and lives and works in Potsdam, Germany.
Photo by Daniel Zox.
Jane Jin Kaisen
(she/her)
Jane Jin Kaisen (b. 1980 Jeju Island, lives in Copenhagen) is known for her visually striking, multi-layered, performative, poetic, and multi-voiced feminist works concerning memory, migration, and borders conceived at the intersection of lived experience and larger political histories. Other long-term commitments revolve around nature and island spaces, alternative cosmologies, sustainability and the preservation of intangible cultures. Kaisen represented Korea at the 58th Venice Biennale and is the recipient of various recognition grants and awards. Recent exhibitions include the13thBerlin Biennale, the 13th Seoul Media City Biennale, the Hawaii Triennial2025, and the Korea Artist Prize 2024 at MMCA Korea.
