Post-Camp
Ben Darrah and Shelly Bahl – 2007
Following Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” (1964), the exhibition Post-Camp tentatively establishes connections between the work of Shelly Bahl and Ben Darrah, and proposes that they be considered in terms of the sensibility “Post-Camp.”
Shelly Bahl’s new series of photographs of a group of South Asian women at an international airport and Ben Darrah’s suite of paintings and assemblages are both underpinned by similar concerns that arise through their individual explorations of what might be called a National identity, while practicing a form of citation that dislocates their subject matter.
About the Artist
Shelly Bahl and Ben DarrahShelly Bahl is a visual and media artist born in Benares, India, and based in Toronto and New York City. She received her B.F.A. (Visual Art and Art History) from York University, Toronto and her M.A. (Studio Art) from New York University. Bahl is a founding artist member of SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Collective) and ZEN-MIX 2000: Pan-Asian Visual Arts Network in Toronto. Born in London, England in 1965.
Ben Darrah immigrated to Canada with his family in 1968. He graduated with a BFA from the University of Alberta in 1987 and received his Masters of Fine Art at the University of Windsor in 1995. He lives in Kingston, Ontario and currently teaches at St. Lawrence College. As well as teaching, Darrah curates and writes about art.