September 2025 – August 2027

Odd Objects: Things We Believe In, is a travelling exhibition that invites us to contemplate our human relationships with objects. Spanning painting, photography, and textiles, the artwork in this exhibition depicts an array of odd objects, from those that hold particular personal, familial, and cultural significance, to everyday objects such as tupperware lids and electric fans.

Featuring whimsical and introspective work from artists Mantis Mei, Teresa Tam, and Pamela Vickerson, this exhibition suggests that our “things” mean more to us than what meets the eye. Sometimes, our fascination with certain objects has to do with the memories attached to them. Maybe these objects remind us of a part of our lives and can be comforting through change and loss. Other times, we can feel magnetically drawn to an object for no apparent reason, perhaps because of its shape and colour, or even a comforting texture we observe by touching and feeling it.

Each artist in this exhibition makes work that is both sentimental and playful, and that encourages us to connect with others by sharing our own stories and memories. Take a closer look at the things that surround you, and consider how and why we collect, use, and care for these objects. Can our relationships with objects tell us anything about the ways we express love in our broader world? Odd Objects: Things We Believe In, highlights the objects we find meaning in as vessels of comfort, humour, and connection.

Curated by Levin Ifko
Touring from the Alberta Society of Artists, TREX Southwest

Mantis Mei is three oranges in a trenchcoat. Mantis is also a Mohkinstsis/Calgary based artist working in sculpture, performance, and installation. Part of their practice revolves around the domestic object and our relationship with creating and maintaining them. What does that relationship look like and what could it look like instead? They are currently exploring the creation of breeds and variations in subjects such as dogs, fonts, fruit, and symbols. They are very grateful to have shown in artist-run centres in the city such as Stride Gallery, The New Gallery, The Bows, and EMMEDIA. They are currently working towards a BFA in Sculpture at the Alberta University of the Arts.

Teresa Tam is an artist from and based in Calgary. She likes to alter spaces and experiences that are familiar, making them a bit foreign through re-interpreting and re-creating. Tam’s projects are developed to emphasize audience interactions as integral components to her work, impelled by the possibility of people experiencing something intimately personal through action. Tam doesn’t specialize in anything, but likes to work with digital processes, functional installations, all things shaped in paper, excessive labour, and collections of mildly niche objects. Recent work includes the Good Job Arcade project. She graduated from AUArts in 2014 and co-runs Yolkless Press with Areum Kim. She’s currently interested in: how memories become embedded in mundane forms and the unexpected ways we remember or forget.

Pamela Vickerson is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up exploring Alberta, moving from the prairies, to the mountains, and then to the city as a teen. With a background in fashion and graphic design, she worked as an editorial and commercial illustrator for a number of years. A never-ending appetite for learning compels her into creative community as both an instructor and a student. Vickerson attended the Alberta University of the Arts for more than two decades, both informally and formally, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Distinction in 2024. Her nomadic and playful early years along with later experiences of loss, profoundly impact the vision and direction of her research and work. Vickerson gratefully creates and lives alongside her family and their cheeky whippet in Moh-kins-tsis/Calgary. 

Documentation of Odd Objects: Things We Believe In on display at Central Memorial High School. Featuring work by Mantis Mei, Teresa Tam, and Pamela Vickerson. Courtesy of TREX Southwest.