Stolen moments

Though she's a fine photographer, immortalizing local legends, landscapes and lipsticks for a living, Shane Ward didn't shoot any of the images she'll be showing off this week. She lifted them from a photo lab where she once worked.

"They were going in the garbage," Ward says of the eight anonymous moments she couldn't let go to waste. To these blurry nostalgia triggers she added succinct snippets of text, appropriating them to fit with events from her own childhood. A family safari in the station wagon, hovering birds and a generic cabin where she sees "we" waking up 25 years later with kids are the sentimental (with just the right amount of quirky) stuff of Carry On, a show she's splitting with photographer/friend Jaime Leblanc.

Leblanc also delves into a nostalgia trip of sorts. Through funny, extra-dry prints, she visits and re-visits the action-packed New Brunswick of her youth, watching it stay the same as she changes over the years.

Carry On opens at the Green Room (5386 St-Laurent) tonight, Jan. 13, at 9 p.m.. » Matthew Woodley

Alien nation building

Displace yourself and experience Heeseung Ko's performance and video installation Moving. Ko came here from Korea in 2001, lured in part by Denys Arcand's movie Jésus de Montréal. She completed her MFA in studio art at Concordia last May and performs tonight, Jan. 13, at her opening, which starts at 5:30 p.m. at the MAI (3680 Jeanne-Mance).

Anyone who's found themself trying to navigate life's day-to-day reality in a foreign culture will relate to Ko's means of reflecting displacement. Using gestures and non-verbal communication, she interacts with the public through the buying and selling of objects and other similar transactions from everyday life. Ko's work touches on the universal nature of moving across cultures, and finding a way to describe it has made her feel more at home. "I am not an alien anymore," she says. "Others also have shared this experience of moving and displacement, and I am not an outsider." Moving runs until Feb. 12, info: 982-1812. » Christine Redfern

U effin' S of A

"We love what America stands for, but we cannot stand them," says loud-mouthed, politically minded local Afshin Matlabi, whose exhibition Anxiety, Apology opens tomorrow at Optica (372 Ste-Catherine W., #508). The show confronts the cultural anxiety that results from, he says, "not knowing who your enemy is."

"I am so sorry that..." is a large-scale drawing made in response to the profusion of public apologies by various governments, institutions and individuals that ushered in the new millennium (Germany and the Pope, to name some). The show also includes two video animations parroting activist art from the '60s. "United Fuckin' States of America" and "United Fuckin' Nations" express Matlabi's love-hate relationship with these powerful symbols of hope and their respective shifts toward overt aggression and impotence. Runs until Feb. 19, info: 847-1666. » Christine Redfern

Milking it

Using the concepts of physical and mental exhaustion, paired with the bottling up and explosion of emotions, choreographer Jean-Sébastien Lourdais kicks off the 2005 season at Tangente (840 Cherrier) this week with his most recent work, Le Lait de la vache.

Originally from France, Lourdais studied in the UQÀM dance program and made waves two years ago with his choreography Défaut de fabrication, which played on dysfunctional behaviour with an apt smattering of humour. Continuing in the same vein, Lourdais and his newly formed company of the same name furthers the exploration of those ideas.

Le Lait de la vache brings together a grouping of solos and duos that play with human impulses, as interpreted by nine dancers. The full-length piece runs until Jan. 15, at 8:30 p.m. nightly with a 4 p.m. show on the 16th. Call 525-1500 to reserve. » Marites Carino

Is it Art?

WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING, AND IT'S QUARTER TO 4... Millions of people go to bed every night feeling good and smug because they just brushed their teeth. They wouldn't sleep so well if they knew they'd just bathed their pearly whites in a cesspool of pathogenic organisms. Good news: you can gear up your brusher for the antibacterial age with VIOlight™. Push a button and germicidal UV bulbs - the kind used in hospitals - zap away 99.9 per cent of nasty bacteria, or so claim the makers. VIOlight™ also doubles as a sleek storage container, designed by none other than world-renowned Philippe Starck, adding a sophisticated touch to any bathroom décor. Log on to www.violight.com and stop those germies from logging on to your bristles, $49.95 (U.S.).

ArtsHole

NO PICTURE: There isn't much to see in Nathalie Melikian's film work, Explosions and More Explosions - just text, in fact. The Vancouver artist sets the tone with heavy words, melodramatic sounds and music, leaving the rest to the imagination. Dream away at VOX (1211 St-Laurent) until Feb. 12. • PHOTOSHOP REVOLUTION: In an examination of how new technology has influenced photo-based art, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Sylvia Grace Borda, Sze Lin Pang and Penelope Umbrico present Pixelware: A Sublime Forgery. The show mixes multiple self-portraiture, manipulated landscapes, mail-order catalogue images and more at Dazibao (4001 Berri) until Feb. 5.

ARTISTAT: Number of stacks of folded garments, weighing 100 pounds each, that make up Brazilian artist Georgia Volpe's clothes-conscious installation Canada/habitation, at Diagonale (5455 Gaspé, #203) until Feb. 26: 52

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