Signals in the Dark: Art in the Shadow of War is an interdisciplinary project investigating the interstices between perpetual war, dominant politics, and visual culture.

It has been argued that a new global empire has emerged, one where dominant nation-states, supranational institutions, corporations, and other powers cooperate to entrench existing hierarchies. Under the pretense of peace, this new network power enforces its rule through perpetual war. The artworks in this exhibition are concerned with global war, how it is represented, and how it is imagined. International in focus, the exhibition engages diverse issues and artistic strategies to target the way in which war permeates human activity. Some works offer unusual perspectives on sites of war, or trace its effects in unexpected places. Many others take issue with various regimes of representation, using images and language, even mockery, as a means of reflecting upon specific discourses of war, its networks, and its apparatuses. Some of the artists seek to visualize the absurdity, horror, and trauma of war, as well as express outrage that stems from personal experiences of its violence. The exhibition is also punctuated by works that delve into the dark morass of violence. Overall, artists challenge spectacles of war and catastrophe, making visible their intertwinement within a New World Order.

This exhibition seeks to uncover and focus on contemporary phenomena of global war and its supporting infrastructures, including forms of knowledge, representation, and behaviour. Where all artworks respond to, take as their source, or embody elements of war, some imagine ways to break through its disastrous perpetuation.

The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s contemporary exhibition program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.