[Bcma-l] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, October 8, 2007

[bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca]

MediaRelease
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, October 8, 2007
ATTENTION ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS
The Alternator Gallery Philosophers’ Café presents:
 
LIT@ALT: A Reading and Discussion Series
With participants Briar Craig (UBC Okanagan) and John Lent (Okanagan 
College)
 
            KELOWNA, BC – On Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 7:30 p.m., 
the Alternator Gallery will launch a dynamic new reading and discussion 
series: LIT@ALT. The first LIT@ALT event will pair celebrated visual 
artist Briar Craig with renowned poet John Lent. The two will be in 
conversation about the aesthetics and politics of collage.

The LIT@ALT series promotes active dialogue between artist/writer and 
community. Craig and Lent, as they read from their chosen texts, display 
relevant images, and discuss literary and visual aspects of collage, 
will simultaneously be in conversation with the audience. In this way, 
the community will be able to participate in meaningful dialogue with 
two accomplished local art practitioners.  

            Craig and Lent are both highly regarded and well-known 
creators and educators. Craig is currently the Head of Creative Studies 
at UBC Okanagan and Lent is the Regional Dean of Okanagan College. 

Craig, a master printmaker, received his Master’s Degree of Visual Arts 
from the University of Alberta in 1987. He has shown his work throughout 
the United States and Canada, as well as in Russia, China, and Bulgaria. 
He is also fascinated with the possibilities for interactive art 
installations. Much of Craig’s work is concerned with understanding what 
he calls the “visual flotsam and jetsam” of contemporary mass-media and 
consumer culture. 

Lent is the author of seven books (of both poetry and prose) and has 
recently finished a collaborative text of conversations about writing 
with Robert Kroetsch entitled Abundance. “My continuing interest,” Lent 
says, “is the relationship between consciousness and notions of 
‘narrative’ in both fiction and poetry.  So I’m fascinated by what 
happens when you take a person in a very ordinary, textured world and 
the story that surfaces actually mimics the process of awareness that is 
right at the heart of that world.”

The Philosophers’ Café: LIT@ALT Reading and Discussion Series, a new 
program designed to enhance the community’s understanding of 
contemporary art and stimulate discussion about cultural issues, is 
organized by the Alternator Gallery, an artist-run centre in the Rotary 
Centre for the Arts at 421 Cawston Ave.  Admission is by donation.

Call (250) 868-2298, check www.alternatorgallery.com or e-mail 
info@alternatorgallery.com <mailto:info@alternatorgallery.com> for 
information.