Becky Thera

Visual poems evoke the melancholy of Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition.

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During the isolation of the pandemic, Edmonton artist Becky Thera found herself thinking about Ernest Shackleton’s experiences in Antarctica a century ago when his ship, Endurance, sank and he and his crew spent many months trapped on ice floes, adrift in small open boats and stranded on barren islands. Often, the temperatures sank to minus 40 or worse. Thera was particularly struck by descriptions of the men huddling together for warmth on a small craft amid high winds and waves.

“When we were not on watch we lay in each other’s arms for warmth,” Shackleton said. “Our frozen suits thawed where our bodies met, and, as the slightest movement exposed these comparatively warm spots to the biting air, we clung motionless, whispering each to his companion our hopes and thoughts.”

This unusual intimacy between the men, whose Antarctic exploits lasted from 1914 to 1917, led Thera to her own investigation of gendered identities. The result is the exhibition, Embrace, on view until Aug. 10 at the Art Gallery of Regina.

The walls and exhibition components, like the landscapes of Antarctica, are almost all white. The room is silent except for the faint sounds of moving water. You have arrived in Shackleton’s white, frozen world. 

Embrace, with its gender politics, is an unusual tribute to the swashbuckling, womanizing Shackleton and his gang of hardy explorers and sailors. They all had a dream of crossing Antarctica from sea to sea over the South Pole. They failed with that goal but accomplished much by working as a team, literally embracing one another to survive terrible hardships.

Throughout the exhibition, Thera juxtaposes embroidery and textiles – two traditional crafts often practiced by women – with images related to the hyper-masculinity of the Antarctic explorers.

Her textile art and videos are like visual poems, evoking melancholy, loneliness and isolation. Viewers may notice a hypnotic effect as they are drawn into her feminized retelling of Shackleton’s story.

In the show, long lengths of gauzy white tulle host cut-outs of photographs from Shackleton’s official photographer, Frank Hurley.

In one piece, Patience Camp, we see seven small men covered in lacy cloth, joined to one another by white embroidery thread. Another, Anxious Days, shows Shackleton’s sinking ship trapped in the ice. A third, Lonely, depicts three men sitting far apart from one another, each alone in his thoughts. Clever lighting casts dark shadows of the cut-outs onto the white wall behind the cloth. These works have a spiritual quality. They seem meant to be adored, even worshipped.

Thera also displays several short slow-motion videos of swimmers engaged in dramatic underwater ballets. Thera, herself, is an artistic swimmer, a sport that used to be called synchronized swimming.

A silent drama unfolds in each video as the swimmers interact, twisting, turning and bobbing below the water’s surface. Their evocation of sadness and loneliness is intense. The videos become mesmerizing.

Overall, the exhibition is ambitious and cerebral. Thera says it “envisions a queer, feminist, maternal world” where we can disrupt the choreography of the patriarchal world “and embrace our infinite potentials.”

The politics driving the exhibition are complicated and may go over the head of many viewers. At times, the discourse seems like the swimmers in the videos, struggling underwater to reach the surface. 

Whatever one’s thoughts on the politics, the exhibition is successful as an immersive sensory experience. Prepare to be impressed. ■

Becky Thera, Embrace, at the Art Gallery of Regina from June 16 to Aug. 10, 2023.

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