With Count + Care, we lovingly turn our attention to the collection. Over 17,000 works of art and culture are housed at Agnes. And in June, we begin to pack that collection in preparation for the building of Agnes Reimagined, our new future-oriented facility. As we pack, we take stock, and consider what it means to care for and be accountable to a public collection. Curated works in twos and threes hold space, or “take the stage,” for biweekly intervals, as we say goodbye to them temporarily. In the process, we bring stewardship forward to the gallery from back of house.

Count + Care seeks relationships within and conversations across the collection at Agnes and acts as a revolving access point through which to reflect on legacies of collecting, of holding but also homing.  These works find themselves here through various means, whether a purchase, donation or transfer, tracing histories of artistic practice and curatorial priorities. Through inventory, Count + Care looks at what has been collected at Agnes and infers what should be collected in addition. The project not only revisits the well-known but also reveals the under-recognized in Agnes’s collection, those who may not yet have had an opportunity to speak through or about their collectivity. What stories do they tell? Come hear what the collection has to say.

COLLECTION COUNT + CARE ACTIVITY BOOK
Pick up this all-ages activity book featuring mindfulness activities, colouring pages and information about the exhibition. Available at Agnes through summer and fall 2022.

Hero image: Nobuo Kubota, Roctoc (from the Atonement series), 1986, photolithograph on paper, 23/30.  Gift of Nobuo Kubota, 2006