Test Kitchen

Derya Akay

Anne Low

​​​​

18 January - 14 February 2026

 

Unit 17 is pleased to present the two person exhibition Test Kitchen with work by Derya Akay & Anne Low to commence our 2026 program.

 

This special presentation brings together sculpture and large-scale collage by Derya Akay and Anne Low, from recent exhibitions Foodways at the Richmond Art Gallery and A Twisted Rag in a Scallop Shell at Astor Weeks, New York City. Test Kitchen marks Unit 17’s ninth year of programming and focuses on a close dialogue between the two artists, each contributing a single work to the exhibition in our new gallery set atop a three story building at 306 Abbott Street. 

 

Test Kitchen expands on a presentation earlier in Unit 17’s history: butter and breads (2018). This exhibition was mounted in Toronto, Canada and took the, sometimes, collaborative practice of these two artists into consideration. Most importantly, the presentation considered their deeply connected social relation, having lived and worked in Vancouver as artists and cultural workers for over a decade. The Toronto presentation focused on larger sculptural and installation-based works, with this presentation now reducing the overall footprint of each artistic proposal. Since 2018, both artists have left Canada. Akay now lives and works in Frankfurt, Germany, studying at Städelschule, while Low is in Stockholm, Sweden pursing a PhD in Textile at Konstfack. 

​

 

List of works:

​

Derya Akay, Making a Menu, 2024, canvas, dye sublimation prints, paper, ink, pins, thread & foamcore in cedar artist’s frame, 121.9 x 121.9cm

 

Anne Low, Pick, 2024, hand woven silk, dyed with weld & indigo, paper, cotton, found metal & plastic, 88.9 x 10.1 x 7.6cm

 

Derya Akay (b. 1988) is an artist living in Frankfurt, Germany. Akay is an interdisciplinary artist who poetically interprets cooking as a metaphor. They explore the tension between preservation and decay, control and chance, trial and error. Their artistic strategies embrace the realities of time and transformation using organic materials. Dumpster diving, recalling dreams, hacking and pirating, alley walks and studying weeds also contribute to her process-based practice.

In 2023, Akay was the Stonecroft Artist-in-Residence at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston. Their recent exhibitions include Flowers from a Story, Unit 17, 2024; The Willful Plot, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 2023; What Water Knows, the Land Remembers, Toronto Biennial of Art, 2022; Meydan, Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver; Contact Traces, Wattis Institute at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, both 2021; The Lulennial II: A Low-Hanging Fruit, Lulu, Mexico City, 2018; HERE, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, 2017; Ambivalent Pleasures, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016. They received a BFA from Emily Carr University in 2010 and is currently a guest student at Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany.

 

Anne Low (b. 1981) is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Solo exhibitions include Medlar, Unit 17, Vancouver (2021); Chair for a woman, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2019); Paperstainer, Mercer Union, Toronto (2018); A wall as a table with candlestick legs, Tensta konsthal, Stockholm (2018) and Witch with Comb, Artspeak, Vancouver (2017). Recent group exhibitions include Interior, Michael Werner Gallery, London (2023); Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara, Romania (2019); Soon Enough – Art in Action, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2018); Separation Penetrates, Mercer Union, Toronto (2017); Dream Islands, Nanaimo Art Gallery (2017); Ambivalent Pleasures, Vancouver Art Gallery (2016) and Reading the Line, the Western Front, Vancouver (2015). In 2017 Low was included in the Loewe Craft Prize, La Fundación Arquitectura COAM, Madrid; Chamber Gallery, New York; and 21_21 Museum, Tokyo.