UNIT/PITT is pleased to present “Solar Bee Garden Tea Zen REMIX,” a site-responsive multi-media installation by Lam Wong and Peter Courtemanche from May 22 – August 15, 2026. Curated by Ali Bosley, the exhibition interfaces and grounds between U/P’s garden and gallery through ceremony, audio/visual experimentalism, land-centered practice, and relational exchange.
As long-time friends, both artists’ practices share commitments to contemplation, ecological awareness, tea cultivation, and revealing the often overlooked within human and natural systems. This collaboration between Wong and Courtemanche marks their first joint project, bringing together disparate practices unified by shared philosophical inquiry, friendship, and garden-based exchange.
Opening reception [date TBD].
The exhibition will also feature a series of special events including an artist talk/panel and exhibition tour, Tea Painting Table Performance/Ceremony facilitated by Wong (a participatory event where the public contributes to evolving artwork through tea staining, tea leaves, and calligraphy), a film screening with Q&A featuring outdoor narrowcast FM radio broadcast, special music performances, and a special iteration of the ReciprociTea project facilitated by Skwxwu7mesh/Sto:Lo/Metis/Hawaiian/Swiss artist, ethnobotanist, and cultural practitioner Tʼuyʼtʼtanat-Cease Wyss.
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.