- May 30 – August 15, 2026
- Opening reception May 30, 1-4 PM
UNIT/PITT presents Solar Bee Garden Tea Zen REMIX, a site-responsive, multi-media collaboration by Lam Wong and Peter Courtemanche (Absolute Value of Noise), May 30 – August 15, 2026. Curated by Ali Bosley.
Moving between U/P’s gallery & garden, the exhibition draws on ceremony, analogue audio/visual experimentation, and garden-centred practice as modes of relational and ecological inquiry. Wong and Courtemanche are longtime friends whose highly distinct and individual practices inevitably culminate around tea — its cultivation, preparation, offering, and ingestion — as a medium and contemplative methodology. Solar Bee Garden Tea Zen REMIX marks their first collaboration, and a meeting of two very distinct artistic languages held together by philosophical kinship and the patient time and texture of the garden.
The exhibition will also feature a series of special events including an artist talk and exhibition tour, tea ceremonies, a collaborative sound performance, a workshop and a film screening.
Events
Please contact info@unitpitt.ca if price is a barrier.
Check out U/P’s Public Events Calendar for more upcoming events and happenings.
UNIT/PITT members get a discount! Find out more here!
Opening Reception | May 30
- May 30, 2026, 1-4 PM
- Free to attend
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Garden-party reception with Host Nation welcome and tea service from Peter Courtemanche and Lam Wong.
Artist Talk + Exhibition Tour | June 18
- June 18, 2026, 6-8 PM
- Free to attend
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Lam Wong and Peter Courtemanche, facilitated by Alison Bosley. Snacks, tea, wine.
Tea Sing | June 24
- June 24, 2026, 7-9 PM
- Limited spots. Get your tickets here
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Lam Wong and Sandra Semchuk: pu’erh tea service and harmonic vocal performance.
ReciprociTea Party | June 28
- June 28, 2026, 1-4 PM
- Free to attend. RSVP here.
- 2954 W 4th Ave
T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss and Jaz Whitford serve Raven and Hummingbird iced herbal tea mixes in the garden, offering Sḵwx̱wú7mesh herbalist knowledge and storytelling.
Sound Performance + Tea Ceremony | July 18
- July 18, 2026, 2-5 PM
- Free to attend. RSVP here.
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Lam Wong’s Zen Buddhist tea ceremony, with Peter Courtemanche capturing ambient sound through speakers across the garden, Anna Friz on transmission, and Cease Wyss layering modular synth from plants and mushrooms.
Workshop with Peter Courtemanche | July 25
- July 25, 2026, 1-4 PM
- Free to attend. RSVP here.
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Listening and talking circle on the philosophy of outdoor sound works.
Closing Reception + Film Screening | August 15
- August 15, 2026, 6-9 PM
- Free to attend. RSVP for the film screening here.
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Featuring garden screening of Lam Wong’s Tea Zen (2016) on its 10th anniversary, featuring new sound design by Peter Courtemanche. Held in the garden under the magnolia tree.
Artist Bios
Absolute Value of Noise (Peter Courtemanche) is a sound artist living in Vancouver. He works with radio, sound installation, and electronics in indoor and outdoor locations. Since 1988, he has created many radio pieces that have been heard around the world on national radio stations, community radio, and temporary radio stations set up for arts festivals and radio-art events. He likes to work with “gadgetry” – bio-electric analog circuits, wire coils, magnetic transceivers, and “little electronic brains” that observe and respond to local phenomena. His outdoor installations typically integrate solar-powered electronics with plants. These works investigate themes of bio-diversity, extinction, and fragile eco-systems. They emphasize the invisible, drawing attention to things people normally overlook or avoid/dislike (insects, lichen, moss, weeds, pollution). Information on his work can be found at https://absolutevalueofnoise.ca.
Lam Wong‘s work bridges time. It connects different points in history with the present: distant past, recent past, moments of contemplation, moments of challenge/crisis, what we might find in the future. He is fascinated by the connections that develop between art works and viewers. He works to build relationships that bring to light the invisible, the gaps and intervals, and a sense of mystery. Lam is a visual artist and curator who immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada during the 1980s and studied design, art history, and painting in Alberta and British Columbia. He works with painting, installation, and performance to engage with themes such as the perception of reality, the role of art, and the relationship between time, memory, and space. He sees art making as an ongoing spiritual practice, and his work draws upon his knowledge of Western art history and his interest in Taoism and Buddhism.