Rick Leong’s 2014 oil painting “Nature morte” is part of ”Symbiosis,” an exhibition that opens March 25 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. (2015.011.001, photo courtesy AGGV)
Themes of ecological beauty and terror abound in upcoming exhibitions at Canadian art galleries, timely initiatives given the dire trajectories that emerged in December at the UN’s biodiversity conference in Montreal. Various artists are reflecting on our awe-inspiring natural world, as well as the losses it has already sustained, including the disappearance of billions of birds and gigantic schools of fish. But as artists grapple with the tolls of climate change and environmental destruction, they are also forging creative paths for hope and regeneration.
Amid predictions that a million plant and animal species could face extinction within decades, the COP15 conference reached an ambitious deal to protect a third of the world’s land, fresh water and marine environments by 2030. But a less-publicized initiative – to enhance education and awareness about biodiversity – is already being embraced by artists, who are responding to fragile places, engaging in dialogues about social and ecological justice, and exploring how the non-human world can take centre stage. They are focused less on economics and sustainable consumption, issues that drive the debates of governments and lobby groups, and more on themes of connectivity and kinship.
One upcoming exhibition, Symbiosis, seeks to build appreciative understandings of forests. A group show at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria organized by Indigenous curators Jaimie Isaac and Mel Granley, it considers the fascinating reciprocities between fungi and larger forest ecologies. With a range of artists, including Rick Leong, a professor at the University of Victoria, as well as national and international artists, it runs from March 25 to Oct. 29.
Manabu Ikeda, “Territory,” 2004
pen and acrylic ink on paper, mounted on board, 17" x 23" (Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, courtesy the Audain Art Museum, Whistler, B.C.)
Another West Coast show, Flowers from the Wreckage, at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler from June 24 to Oct. 9, presents intricate large-scale drawings by Japanese artist Manabu Ikeda. The gallery says Ikeda’s work depicts the “collision of humankind, nature and an environmental disaster, while emphasizing an ensuing regeneration.”
Meanwhile, Ooleepeeka Eegeesiak, an Inuk curatorial assistant at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, who organized the recent group show, Every Possible Future Is Multispecies, says Inuit knowledge and philosophy, which see alliances amongst all forms of life, offer an alternative to the excesses of consumerism that help drive environmental degradation.
“Direct experience with weather patterns, ice, migrations, landscapes and the lifeways of other beings has been accumulated through generations of reciprocity and intimacy with ecological systems,” Eegeesiak says. “By perceiving the land, water, air, and all that inhabit these spaces as entangled and intertwined, human perspectives become decentred.”
Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald, ”Journal of the Plague Year(s),” 2022
installation view (photo by Carey Shaw, courtesy the Remai Modern, Saskatoon)
In Saskatoon, artists Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald, have spent much of the pandemic working on their Journal of the Plague Year(s), a massive installation on view at the Remai Modern until March 5. They explore various themes, but include many images of birds, which were inspired by a report in Science magazine about the disappearance of 2.9 billion adult birds in North America – a decline of about 25 per cent – over the last 50 years.
After reading the article, the two artists started painting birds on recycled cardboard. Like those who have taken up birding over the last three years, they say their work to increase awareness of the avian world is helping “break up the relentless gloom of the pandemic.”
Climate justice, social justice and biodiversity go hand in hand. Under-privileged and racialized communities, particularly in the Global South and circumpolar regions, are already suffering disproportionately from the consequences of climate change.
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John Akomfrah, “Vertigo Sea,” 2015
three-channel video, 48:30 min., installation view at National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (NGC © Smoking Dogs Films; courtesy Smoking Dogs Films and Lisson Gallery, London; photo by NGC)
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John Akomfrah, still from “Vertigo Sea,” 2015
three-channel high‑definition video, 48:30 min. (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; © John Akomfrah/Smoking Dogs Films; courtesy Smoking Dogs Films and Lisson Gallery, London)
British artist John Akomfrah’s three-channel video installation Vertigo Sea, on view at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa until July, links diverse themes through narratives that portray the ocean as what the gallery calls “a site of terror and of beauty.”
The installation includes staged scenes produced by Akomfrah, as well as excerpts from BBC archival footage that juxtapose various forms of predation – whether the whale hunt off Newfoundland, Black bodies confined in the hold of slave ships or desperate refugees fleeing their homelands in makeshift vessels. The human anguish and environmental destruction exerted by colonialism and capitalism are readily apparent.
Meanwhile, at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, curator Crystal Mowry engages with subversive storytelling through non-human narration. What the Bat Knows, which continues to May 28, features porcelain bat sculptures by Toronto artist Shary Boyle. They act as narrators, inviting audiences to question information sources and imagine stories told from other viewpoints.
While these galleries – and others – are helping raise awareness of ecological issues, is it possible for the arts sector to do more? While institutions need to keep an eye on “mission creep” – most lack the resources to organize exhibitions and activities on every topic that interests them – much can be done in cost-effective ways through talks, workshops, online events and social media campaigns. Supporting education about the importance of healthy ecosystems helps beget healthy human and non-human communities. Indeed, COP15 wrappd up with an understanding that action, more than words, is now vital on all fronts. An Irish proverb underlines the challenge: “You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.” ■
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