ICC at the Royal Ontario Museum presents Mariner 9 by Kelly Richardson

(News Release)

ICC collaborates with TIFF to present North American debut of Richardson’s Martian Landscape

Kelly Richardson, Mariner 9, 2012. Originally commissioned by Tyneside Cinema, UK. Image courtesy of the artist and Birch Libralato

Toronto, Ontario – The Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) continues its annual collaboration with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

From September 6 to 16, 2012, the Thorsell Spirit House, on Level 1 of the ROM’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, hosts the North American premiere of Kelly Richardson’s new video installation, Mariner 9, as part of the contemporary art program of the Toronto International Film Festival, Future Projections . Admission to this exhibition is free.

Kelly Richardson’s new panoramic installation Mariner 9 depicts Mars, as she imagines it, a few hundred years from now.

Using scenery-generation software employed by the film and gaming industries, and importing imagery and technical data from past NASA missions to Mars, Richardson has created a faithful artist’s rendering of Martian terrain. Mariner 9 transforms the Thorsell Spirit House into an immersive environment, transporting the viewer into the centre of a Martian dust storm.

The Martian landscape becomes a battlefield of real and imagined spacecraft in this panoramic video installation that is at once dystopian and alarmingly beautiful.

The work was first installed at the Spanish City Dome inWhitley Bay, England during the Tyneside Cinema Festival, where the Burlington, Ontario native currently resides.

Richardson received her undergraduate degree in fine and media arts from the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), and her masters degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and Newcastle University (UK). She has been exhibited at various museums and public institutions including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and Centre Georges Pompidou.

Mariner 9 by Kelly Richardson at the ROM is curated by Laurel MacMillan and is presented in collaboration with the Future Projections program of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Institute for Contemporary Culture
The mission of the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum is to stimulate diverse audiences to think creatively, understand and change the world. Inspired by the mandate and collections of the ROM, the ICC examines living societies and the natural world, linking the present to the past through innovative exhibitions, special events and the creation of dynamic original content using new technologies. For more information: www.rom.on.ca/icc

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The Royal Ontario Museum is an agency of the Government of Ontario. Opened in 1914, Canada’s largest museum of natural history and world cultures has six million objects in its collections and galleries showcasing art, archaeology and natural science. For 24-hour information in English and French, please call 416.586.8000 or visit the ROM’s web site at www.rom.on.ca. Tickets to the ROM are available online at www.rom.on.ca