Art Exhibition: If a Tree Falls in a Forest

Featuring works by Peishan Huang and Maria Simmons, If a Tree Falls in a Forest brings together a collection of lens-based multimedia works that highlight two distinct, yet often interwoven imaginaries of nature. Huang’s work creates momentary fractures within a hyper-urbanized mediation of nature, while Simmons engenders a move towards more-than-human agents as carriers of knowledge. From artificial landscapes to folklore about overturned trees as portals, from deep forests to forgotten buildings, the artworks in this exhibition evoke the duality of human desires to both step into and aside from nature at a threshold in which the imaginaries collide.

The exhibition is in part of CONTACT Photography Festival 2024.

About the artists

Peishan Huang 黄佩姗 (b.1994, Dali, Yunnan, China) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in Multidisciplinary Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art (2021) and a BA in Advertising from Communication University of China (2018). Her recent work ranges from photography to sculpture to installation, exploring images and the spaces they inhabit, as well as the emotions pinned to objects and spaces. Peishan’s works have been exhibited internationally, including Three Shadow Photography Art Center in Beijing, China, Time Museum in Chengdu, China, ULTRAMONTANE Museum in Hangzhou, China, Advertising Museum of China in Beijing, China, Museum 54 in Shanghai, China, MP Birla Millennium Art Gallery in London, UK, theBLANC Art Space in New York, USA, Decker Gallery in Baltimore, MD, USA, Richard Riggs Gallery in Baltimore, MD, USA. Peishan has received Mount Royal Commencement Award (2022) and Gold-Stern Emerging Artist Award (2022). She has also completed Guerrilla War Artist Residency (2020) in Shanghai, China.

Maria Simmons (she/they) is a hybrid artist living in Guelph, ON. She investigates potentialized environments through the creation of hybrid sculpture and installation. Their work embraces contamination as an act of collaboration. She collects garbage, grows mushrooms, ferments plants, and nurtures fruit flies. They make art that eats itself.

They hold an MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BFA from McMaster University. She has recently exhibited at Trinity Square Video, Xpace, The Plumb, Ed Video Media Art Centre, Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the Hamilton Artist Inc. She has completed residencies at Mustarinda, Finland, BioArt Society, Finland, Silent Barn in NYC, NY, and Factory Media Centre in Hamilton, ON.

About tangent Collective

Founded in 2021, Tangent Collective is a nomadic artists and curators collective maneuvering in between Canada, China and the US. We incubate cross-disciplinary dialogues and research-based practice centring on issues of decolonization, postcolonialism, global infrastructure, and environmental discourse, fostering regional exchange and dialogues between artists within and outside of the greater Chinese diaspora.

Artists: Peishan Huang, Maria Simmons

Curator: Tangent Collective

Time: May 25 – June 16, 2024

Reception: June 16, Sunday, 2 – 4 pm

Location: San Sheng Art Space (Unit 1, 333 Denison St, Markham)

Admission: Free