Monday, December 11, 2006

1970s Octavo exhibition * anyone see it!?

Does anyone know anything about the Octavo exhibition that took place at SAW Gallery somewhere in the mid to latter seventies? It was a group exhition of what sounds like text art and visual poetry. (I don't know since I wasn't there nor is there any trace of documentation about it in cyberspace; apparently, no note on the SAW archives web pages.) I'm very curious to know more about the exhibition. Leads on this front would likely assist Grant Wilkins conduct his ongoing research into the histories of sound & visual poetries in Ottawa. Imagine that there must be records in the deeps of SAW Gallery archives. Justin Wonnacott mentioned that it took place during the time when SAW was located above Bill's Cameracraft on Rideau St. He described it (i'm paraphrasing) as being an exhibition of text based visual art.

By the way, Justin is working on a project in which he is photographing every structure on Somerset Street between Bank & Preston. There was an article about his Somerset Street plans in the City Journal a couple weeks ago. The relevance of this project to Ottawa poetry? There is an image of the house where 'The International Driving School' is located. Messagio Galore take II (september '05) & bill bissett's Rush: What Fuckan Theory - a study uv language (january '06) were both performed there as part of the Hit'n'Run Lecture Series. Look for 882 Somerset:

http://aregeebee.typepad.com/somersetonline/preston_to_booth/index.html

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