Town + Country: Narratives of Property and Capital troubles the enduring narrative binary of town and country. Borders between these two terrains have always morphed and slipped around each other theoretically, politically, economically, and socially, yet the narrative of the urban/rural divide persists. Indigenous land dispossession and reclamation, capital accumulation in the form of real-estate assets, labour, and technological development are all obscured by this persistent fiction. Town and country narratives similarly obscure questions of class, freedom of movement, and resource extraction. The works in this exhibition subvert rural and urban binaries to offer gestures of refusal and resistance. Through the inextricable entanglement of town and country's histories, nostalgias, and futures, the exhibition reflects on a critical reframing of conceptions of “land use” across disciplines. Our moment requires a radical rethinking of property, territory, occupation, and ownership, and these artists and activists can help do this.

Town + Country: Narratives of Property and Capital is co-organized by the Kamloops Art Gallery and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, curated by Caitlin Jones, Charo Neville, and Melanie O’Brian and made possible with the generous support of the Audain Foundation, Jane Irwin and Ross Hill, the Hamber Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Belkin Curator’s Forum members.