In Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens’s exhibition An Animated Assembly, new hand-painted murals, short animations, and sculptural assemblages vie for our attention. These works invite us to take up contemporary economic and environmental challenges fearlessly, and to reimagine community to include myriad life forms.
Combining documentary footage, drawn animation, and sound, the animations introduce us to a chorus of beings with diverse stakes in the contested notion of a green energy transition. Enlisting situational humour, they beckon us to consider this transition from the viewpoints of both humans and more-than-humans. We meet the CEO of an international mining company who introduces himself by pushing Argentine lithium as a “great investment opportunity.” Fairy dust and magical thinking pepper his corporate pitch until his head, untethered by his claims of environmental responsibility, leaves his body and floats away. A Canadian elected official, a vicuña, a guardhouse, the proud North American owners of a hybrid car, an offshore wind farm, and BC oysters all chime in, their voices carrying equal weight.
