Illuminating Language
A 911 Windows Installation
Dick Averns
February 10 – March 19, 2000

911 Media Arts Center is pleased to present Illuminating Language, a new neon installation by British artist Dick Averns. The exhibition ran from February 10 through March 26 in 911’s five storefront windows, at our previous location on Yale Avenue.

Illuminating Language, commissioned by 911 Media Arts Center for its Windows exhibition program, probed the vitality of language using a mix of neon and backlit texts. The content of the artwork posed questions about the structure of relationships – between artwork and audience, linguistic thought and visual communication. The installation served as a succinct parenthesis or subtext to the way in which a text based language has been incorporated within a broader visual idiom. The work, installed in a public display space, engaged passing pedestrians and the thousands of drivers who passed by daily. Neon, as an artistic medium, has a strong history in the Pacific Northwest and is currently undergoing a resurgence in installation-based exhibitions.

Dick Averns was born in London, England and is currently a resident of Vancouver, Canada. He was recently artist-in-residence at The Banff Centre for the Arts and his photo-conceptual exhibit Luxury Avenue (a forensic exploration of residential housing developments) is now touring British Columbia. Averns trained as a fine artist in New York and London and adopts an interdisciplinary approach to his practice, working in sculpture, performance, contemporary dance and public art projects.