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Negotiating the Space of the City by Karen Love duality of the city as being a place of danger and exploitation for women as well as a site of mobility, negotiation, pleasure and transforma tion is explored in the exhibition Urban Fictions at Presentation House Gallery. The idea for the exhibition began in conversations between sev eral Vancouver artists and Lvnne Bell, a teacher and independent curator who has taken on the task of curating the show. Starting from a common interest in the notion of gendered space, these artists recognized their recent work, although made for different occa sions, had in common certain themes relating to women and the urban landscape: mobility, danger and nego tiation; migrancy. culture, identity; desire, exchange, and sexual identity. Jin-me Than, Oxford & Hastings, 1995. One of two lifesize colour photos. Photos: taken by Suson Stewart The artists in the exhibition are Lorna Brown, Margot Butler, Ana Chang, Allyson Clay, Dana Claxton, Andrea Fatona, Melinda Mollineaux, Shani Mootoo, Susan Schuppli, Karen Ai-Lyn Tee, Cornelia Wyndgaarden and Jin-me Yoon. Making work which begins in lived, everyday experience and moves to a critique of dominant versions of history and knowledge, the above artists re-negotiate existing ideologies of "women's place" in the city. Telling stories of city streets in Canada and contemporary metropoli tan cultures elsewhere, they explore the western city as a space produced by a range of practices and represen tations. In doing so, they reveal both gender and the city as significant spaces for analysis and critical under standing. Urban Fictions will include mixed media photo-based work--sculptural visual arts and two-dimensional in nature--and video installation, plus city Street pro jects such as Melinda Mollineaux's bus shelter poster which will be located in a high-traffic site in Vancouver. This work is drawn from the artist's experience as a black woman walking in the city, and looks at the recognition and acknowledge ment which occurs when two black women pass each other on the Street. Other examples of work from the exhibition are Dana Claxtons video I Want To Knon' Why, shot in New York, Ottawa, Indian Head and Hold the Kettle Reserve in Saskatchewan, which will examine how imperialism and government-sanctioned oppres sion has destroyed people, particularly in First Nations and Métis communities. Jin-me Ynon's work will explore how the maternal body negotiates work and the city, and Karen Tee's work will address the notion of a traveling self which, in Trinh T. Minh-ha's words, constantly has to negotiate between "home and abroad, native culture and adopted culture.. between a here, a there, and an elsewhere." Associate professor and head of the department of Art and Art Histor at the University of Saskatchew an in Saskatoon, Lynne Bell is also a writer, freelance curator and lecturer, and over the years has illustrated a particular interest in work which addresses women's issues. She and all 12 exhibiting artists will give a walking tour of the exhibition on the opening day, Saturday, January 13th, at 2 p.m., followed by a reception. Monday, January 15. at 7:30 p.m., there will be a poetry and prose reading by Larissa Lai and Marilyn Dumont. These events are free and open to the public. Urban Fictions will be at Presentation House Gallery until February 18th. Karen Love is the director/curator of Presentation House Gallery. Written in collaboration with Lynne Bell, guest curator of the Exhibition Urban Fictions. a) > `a `9