July 12, 2019 – September 8, 2019
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Curated by Jaclyn Quaresma
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Works by Rebecca Jane Houston and Kelly Jazvac
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Durham Art Gallery, West Grey, Canada
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This exhibition is accompanied by an interview between Elder Shirley John, whose Anishinabe name is Strong White Buffalo Woman and She Who Sees Vision of Wisdom, and Jaclyn Quaresma. Click here to access it along with the full programming schedule and exhibition map.
The Vocabulary of Water is an exhibition that is void of water
in image and actuality but is full to the brim with watery
imaginings. Here on the banks of the Saugeen River, Durham
Art Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition that features Lake
Ontario. Artists Rebecca Jane Houston and Kelly Jazvac both
address the Lake. Kelly considers it from deep below its
surface, while Rebecca sticks to the shore. They are concerned
with the place of plastics, specifically microplastics, in and
around the great aqueous body.
Microplastics are tiny bits of plastic debris that are found in the
environment. These plastic particles are chunks, flakes, shards
and unravelled threads belonging to consumer and industrial
objects that have not broken down. The video, Forward
Contamination (2017), by Kelly Jazvac features the work of
scientist Anika Ballent. Through a microscope, we watch Anika
sort sand, rock, wood and microplastics found in a core sample
taken from Lake Ontario. The plastics in the sample have made
their way into the deep muds that cradle the freshwater.
As we watch, we hear a conversation between Kelly and the
planetary geologist, Catherine Neish reenacted by voice
actors. They speak of possible human microbial transfer to
interstellar bodies, planets far, far away, and the care that is
taken by space agencies to avoid this kind of contamination. As
their conversation progresses, a drum track enters gradually
rising in volume, making it difficult for the actors to hear each
other and for the viewer to listen to them. Eventually, one can
catch them yelling about NASA’s Planetary Protection Treaty
while Anika continues to meticulously sort.
In Hope is Our Only Hope (2019) handmade, handheld clay
vessels sit gently atop a mound of sand. Rebecca Jane
Houston has transferred a portion of Lake Ontario’s sandy
shoreline to the Durham Art Gallery. Viewers are invited to
harvest plastic waste found within the mound using the bowls
to contain it. At the end of the exhibition, Rebecca will return
the borrowed sand home to Lake Ontario, free of pollution,
preventing the microplastics from returning to the lakebed.
From this exhibition comes a flood of questions: What is the
vocabulary of Water? How do we speak, about, to and with
Water? Who speaks for Water? And how do we honour our
relationship with it? Through the vocabulary of Water, can we
expand our thinking around plastics, contamination, and
human impact in relation to the precious liquid resource? Is
Lake Ontario so different from the Saugeen River? Do plastics
not sit along our shores? What contaminants lay beneath?
What settles into the bottom? Into Us? Here on Earth, which
agencies prevent against the contamination of this planet?
The exhibition, The Vocabulary of Water reminds us that action, even small, succinct action is the only medicine against despair and human carelessness. To help work through the questions prompted by the work of Kelly Jazvac and Rebecca Jane Houston, curator Jaclyn
Quaresma turned to Elder Shirley John.
About the Artists
Kelly Jazvac is an artist who works with an interdisciplinary team of scientists, writers, and artists to research plastic pollution. Jazvac’s recent exhibitions include Sharp and Numb at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon; Song of the Open Road at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Atmospheres of Form, Parisian Laundry, Montreal; and A Stratigraphic Fiction at The Berman Museum of Art, Collegeville, PA. Her work has been written about in e-flux Journal, Hyperallergic, C Magazine, The Huffington Post, Magenta Magazine, Border Crossings, Canadian Art, artforum.com, The New Yorker, and The Brooklyn Rail. She has upcoming exhibitions at Fierman Gallery, New York, and Or Gallery, Vancouver.
Rebecca Jane Houston is a sculptor, painter and art teacher who has also worked in arts-based community development for many years. She works with many kinds of materials to create works that reflect our own actions back to us. Often working with waste, Houston explores the agency of matter and the power that refuse has over us through our bodies, on human/ non-human interactions and on the built and natural environment. Rebecca completed her BFA and MFA at York University and currently lives in Toronto. She is a member of the Akin Collective.
Elder Shirley John, whose Anishinabe name is Strong White Buffalo Woman and She Who Sees Vision of Wisdom. Shirley is a member of Loon/ Grizzly Bear of the Chippewa’s of Saugeen along the beautiful shores of Lake Huron. Both Ojibway and Mohawk, her favourite saying is “Each and Every Day.” As Shirley will say, this grandmother lives for peace for all of humanity each and every day. Over the years she has been a visiting elder with many organizations throughout Canada and U.S sharing spiritual guidance, and traditional teachings and a long-time supporter of the friendship movement.
Jaclyn Quaresma 