This exhibition takes its name from Jean Francois Millet’s painting “The Gleaners” (1857), which depicts three peasant women hunched down picking the remainders of a harvest. The traditional practice of gleaning involves gathering and sharing forgotten or ignored food crops, but gleaning occurs whenever things or ideas that were once cast aside are given new value.

In this exhibition seven Canadian and international artists glean for stories. Storytellers acquire their tales through travel to distant places, slow engagement with a single place or idea, or a combination of the two. In Gleaners, the process of collecting stories is integrated within the narratives themselves. These tales are shared through a range of media including photography, video, sculpture, music, and word of mouth. The exhibition will be accompanied by information about Nanaimo’s organised food gleaning programs courtesy of Nanaimo Foodshare.

Free events and public programming:

A talk and tour on the relationship between collecting and storytelling with artist Kara Uzelman and curator Jesse Birch on Saturday, January 24, 2 pm.

Screenings of Agnes Varda’s The Gleaners and I will be held at 7pm on Friday February 13, Friday March 13, and Friday April 10, Nanaimo Art Gallery’s Art Lab

Gleaners: Salt Walk Saturday April 18, 2pm A Salt Walk with Randy Lee Cutler. Join artist Randy Lee Cutler for a walk through downtown Nanaimo exploring the enduring relationship that civilizations have had with salt, from its importance in food preservaton and healing to more aesthetic and philosphical implication