Many of the current exhibitions in our local art institutions are still marginally related to “lens-based art” as the citywide embrace of the Capture Photography Festival presses on, so happening upon a sound installation (complemented by a giant gelatin nose) among the design studios behind Access Gallery is a bit of a sanctuary. 
Gabi Dao, Open Sesame
Spare Room is a recently established space for site-specific projects. Open Sesame is a project by emerging Vancouver artist Gabi Dao, who built the installation of layered temple motifs interrupted by profane materials (framing lumber, gelatin, LED strips) and created the accompanying nine-minute narrative sound piece. The text, written and read by Dao’s collaborator Linton Murphy, describes elements of the installation in the manner of archaeological documentaries voiced by the likes of David Attenborough. Strips of blue and white LEDs are the only form of lighting in the small exhibition room. Based on the architecture at Angkor Wat, the structure’s concentric right angles are given an under-glow by the lights, leading your eyes to a diorama housing a large nose cast from gelatin. Beneath this awkwardly leaning, but glorious schnoz is a pirated DVD case for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider standing atop a stubby column-cum-Olympic podium.
Dao’s reference to the Cambodian temple seems irrelevant, given the theatrical treatment of the overall installation, until one learns that Angkor Wat was one of the shooting locations for Tomb Raider, when Angelina Jolie became enamored with the country and adopted her Cambodian son. At the center of this installation is an array of wires splayed like post-sacrifice viscera spilling from the back of a set of speakers, an amp, and a DVD player. Indeed, there is something a little grotesque about the unruly mess. The usual impulse is to hide the entrails of AV equipment behind walls or beneath plinths, but we are a far, and energizing, cry from the white cube in this gallery that feels like a perverse shrine housed in a bedroom closet.
Dao exposes her material and method to confirm she’s not interested in the hygienic magic of conventional exhibition display, and simply invites us to reflect on collapsed spirituality and her sassy critique of high-budget cultural misappropriation.
Spare Room: http://spare-room.ca/
Gabi Dao: Open Sesame continues until May 23.
Steffanie Ling's essays, criticism, and art writing have been published alongside exhibitions, in print, and online in Canada and the United States. She is the editor of Bartleby Review, an occasional pamphlet of criticism and writing in Vancouver, and a curator at CSA Space. She is Akimblog’s Vancouver correspondent and can be followed on Twitter and Instagram @steffbao.
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Gabi Dao at Spare Room, Vancouver
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