0:00

meal of contemporary art entitled borderline um that spans two locations it’s at the

0:07

aga in edmonton and the raimi modern in saskatoon and it opened in both locations on saturday

0:14

um so the biennial is an exhibition that happens every two years uh and looks at contemporary art in

0:21

alberta up until this year the biennial looked only at alberta

0:26

and artists that were working within alberta’s provincial borders

0:31

this year rather than looking at that strict geographical boundary the biennial instead focused on the

0:38

territorial borders of the numbered treaty regions four six 7 8 and 10. to also open a conceptual

0:47

conversation around borders how they manifest within our lives which are prioritized

0:54

and what it means to cross them to challenge them or to be in proximity to them the art gallery of

1:01

alberta is situated on treaty six as is our partner institution remy modern we are also in edmonton

1:09

and on the traditional land and meeting place of diverse indigenous peoples including the cree blackfoot metis

1:17

nakota sioux iroquois inuit and ojibwe solto anishnabe

1:25

just some quick sort of housekeeping things with our platform here if you are joining us

1:33

live um you should see somewhere on your screen a reconnect or rejoin button so if

1:40

you’re ever having any kind of technical or connectivity issues

1:45

you can just click that and it should clear up any problems that you’re having

1:51

we also have a chat function so there is sophia who’s helping us out on

1:57

our kind of tech things today she’s going to be monitoring that chat and she’s going to be answering all of

2:02

your questions as she can but if there’s anything that she doesn’t

2:08

know the answer to or can’t fully answer we will follow up afterwards with

2:13

more extensive answers to any of those questions so feel free to use that chat function

2:19

throughout our conversation here um so april um

2:24

is a visual artist living in treaty 6 territory in edmonton alberta

2:30

her father’s grandparents were early settlers of what is now farmland in the

2:35

battlefields area of saskatchewan which is also 2d6 uh which is how she came to live as a

2:41

third generation settler on treaty six lands uh april maintains an active studio practice of

2:48

all things print media she’s also an arts and culture administrator advocate and teacher

2:56

with formal training in photographic technology and printmaking her work is often constructed of

3:03

lens-based work with language fragments in 2012 she was

3:09

granted a master of fine arts degree from nascar in halifax and in 2016 she

3:16

was awarded a public art commission from the edmonton arts council and was awarded the edmonton artist

3:23

trust fund award in 2018 she’s also the executive director of the

3:28

society of northern alberta print artist or snap which is a non-profit

3:34

artist run center also here in edmonton um so april was selected by the

3:39

curatorial team which is made up by myself francesca ebert spence

3:44

felicia gay and sandra fraser for her super exciting proposal

3:51

for a piece that would include wrapping plants in plastic and looks at our

3:57

contemporary relationship with plants primarily house plants and unpacks

4:03

our separateness from nature so april um for those who haven’t had a chance to

4:11

maybe see the exhibition would you maybe describe the work a little bit for

4:17

us and and maybe sophia can can pull up an image that we have of it

4:23

sure thanks lindsay um so the the piece in the biennial uh

4:29

is titled i inhale you exhale um and uh i

4:36

started thinking about uh the house plant and and was sort of first introduced to

4:43

this process of vacuum forming which we’ll get more into uh while i was on the residency at the

4:50

bath center in the summer of 2018 uh so the work included in the biennial

4:55

um i’ve been thinking about how to show this work and different iterations of it for a few years now

5:01

um and uh and so working with the curatorial team uh we came uh came to this like final

5:09

installation of a large uh gradient on the on the wall it’s 102 inches high by 140

5:17

inches wide and then 15 and fully sealed uh forms plastic forms uh with hostage

5:24

plants i’ve live houseplants uh in them uh then hung uh in the grid on the wall

5:32

um and then there are two light fixtures uh which have grow grow lights uh in them that uh are on

5:40

timers ensuring that the plants get some some uv uh light uh throughout the day each

5:46

day and so avril you are a printmaker

5:53

uh and this work is maybe a little bit of a departure from from other work that you’ve done um

6:00

so can you maybe share a little bit about how you came to this work and how you kind of situate it within

6:05

the rest of your practice mm-hmm yeah this is a good question i think i’m still

6:11

thinking through this or um you know i’ve lots of folks have

6:17

connected with me as i’ve been making this work and i’m constantly relying to them how uncomfortable it makes me

6:23

and a lot of that has to do with i think that i’m uh you know for the last 10 years i’ve been showing

6:28

two-dimensional work uh works on paper prints photographs maybe some video but um

6:35

although i’ve had a long sort of real interest and fascination with objects uh and um still life

6:44

and i’m often photographing objects and then showing two-dimensional representations of them and so this work

6:49

um you know showing the actual forms and the real plants and working you know maybe in a more um like

6:56

sculptural way uh yeah it takes me out of my comfort zone as an artist for sure um and so uh

7:04

that said um i i also am the kind of a

7:10

print artist or printmaker that really likes to dig into the um the philosophy of of

7:17

printmaking um and i you know i can go down a really deep rabbit hole about like what is and

7:23

isn’t a print and reproducibility um and uh you know uh indirect impressions

7:30

and things that are yeah um repeatable and so for me the vacuum form um does a similar thing

7:38

that printmaking has done for you know hundreds of years in that it’s borrowing techniques from industry and

7:46

so vacuum forming is a commercial process for packaging um and so you know it’s often used

7:53

by sculptors or in sculpting studios to make a mold to then you know pour um

7:59

plaster or ceramic into and so that’s sort of how it’s been adopted

8:05

by artists um but i i see a real connection to printmaking

8:10

in the ability to um so you could create this form um and then you could create many

8:17

impressions from that form as well and and so to me there’s still a relationship to

8:23

the multiple and like creating a matrix that you can take further impressions

8:30

and you have another project also that you that maybe predates but also is kind of happening concurrently to

8:37

this body of work that is um looking at photographic representation

8:43

of the same or similar plants right yeah so um again in 2018

8:51

um i was really fortunate i received an edmonton artist trust fund award which is a really

8:57

incredible award that the edmonton arts council and edmonton community foundation award each year

9:04

um and they gave a certain number of artists a chunk of money uh and for me that was um

9:11

this uh really critical uh sort of catalyst for being able to take some time away from work uh do this

9:18

residency at the bounce center take a full three months to really reinvest and refocus on my all my art

9:24

practice um and so part of that was um taking time to really think through i

9:31

had this growing interest in in the house plan and both like in my in my life as many of us do

9:37

but also as an artist and um locating it as this really interesting site for

9:42

investigation um for me it’s sort of this uh really it

9:48

can function as a really loaded symbol of um capitalism uh it sort of situates

9:55

our relationship uh to the natural world as a consumer you know we go out and we

10:00

shop and we buy houseplants um it uh it has of course all kinds of

10:06

colonial history built into it of um you know going to other places

10:11

uh and then taking resources and bringing them back the house plant has a really interesting

10:16

history in the victorian era um and so i was thinking about the house plan in that way but then

10:23

also thinking about it in a contemporary context as this real site of our ability to extend

10:31

care and and that’s what for me that’s what learning about learning about plants and gardening and

10:37

um you know learning how to propagate plants from clippings um as this kind of counter narrative to

10:44

um yeah the multiple and this idea that there there is abundance and there is enough

10:50

for sharing and there is enough for everyone um and so uh

10:56

for me the house plan is this complicated symbol uh that can connect to all of these

11:03

branching ideas um and and for me learning how to care for plants didn’t come naturally i really

11:09

had to i really had to learn to do it um and because it’s this

11:14

relationship that exists you know outside of language um and the you know the little tag that

11:20

you get with your houseplant doesn’t often uh give you quite enough instructions to really know what it really means

11:26

um it also has to become a relationship of observation of um taking the time to

11:32

pay pay attention to um maybe what this living thing that you’ve committed to caring for uh needs

11:39

and and then paying greater attention to the conditions uh that it it’s trying to survive or

11:45

thrive in um and so i yeah i am

11:50

sort of thinking through the the houseplant and the clipping in in other work uh that

11:57

happens uh photographically or in print media um and playing with some stop-motion

12:02

animation as well that’s so interesting like when you were um when you were talking then

12:09

i was thinking of like how how clear of a line get the work kind of draws between this

12:16

sort of like victorian idea of like putting a you know plant or like a specimen um underneath this like glass

12:24

enclosure and like what a clear line at your work then draws also to like contemporary

12:30

um like commercial plastic packaging um just something that i think is super

12:36

interesting uh with the piece um so in the work there there are kind of

12:41

these three elements um so we’ve got the plastic forms

12:47

um the plants and the gradient uh and so i was hoping that maybe you can

12:53

kind of like dissect each of these elements um a little bit and so i’m

12:58

wondering if you can uh share a little bit more um about the plants themselves

13:07

um maybe just starting with um how you came

13:13

across the plants that are in the work are they plants that you’ve propagated or did you

13:20

come across them in some other way there’s um there’s a good mix of

13:25

both um uh and that was something in the early stages of thinking through

13:31

this project was like there’s a lot of decisions to be made about what plants and what they symbolize and

13:36

um there was a lot of different you know do i uh do a vacuum form and put on display

13:42

plants that i’ve been caring for in my home for years um or do i go out and shop for new plants um

13:48

and so i had to consider a lot of different uh factors um and some of that even just

13:54

being um aesthetics and uh who who was going to survive uh the

14:02

best maybe in these conditions um and so yeah there there are

14:08

a mix i think there’s probably a third of the plants uh have been grown from uh propagated

14:14

clippings uh that i’ve had going going in my house for the last year or

14:20

so um which is also something i really had to learn learn about um and uh and some of my

14:27

favorite plants in in my home have come from clippings from from friends but also uh from print

14:34

making studios uh particularly the u of a um has a lot of natural light and so there

14:41

are a lot of very large plants that are cared for there and then there’s always clippings galore and so i

14:48

have adopted a few years as well um so i’m just looking at the photo here um but then some uh quite honestly

14:56

uh i just um you know did my duty as a good consumer and went to greenhouses and shopped shopped for

15:04

plants um uh thinking about uh yeah what was going to be the right size

15:10

and the right aesthetic and the right look but i think i was also hoping that um

15:17

yeah we would sort of connect with connect with the viewer in a way that they’re thinking about this idea of

15:24

their position as consumer um but also you know it’s also nice to just sort of like

15:30

see a plant and be like well i have i have a close relative of this plant at home

15:36

that i care for also so just thinking through a range um and also just learning about

15:41

what the most popular types of houseplants are and why like how that how that came to be and

15:47

a lot of it has to do with um just years and years of learning about

15:53

like ease of care like what you’re likely to have the most success with in an indoor environment

16:00

and so when you were when you were shopping um did you select um by

16:08

kind of considerations of how long they were going to live are they primarily indoor plants

16:15

are they kind of like naturally growing in this part of the world

16:22

yeah they are all uh indoor plants and there’s a bit of a range between tropical

16:27

and succulent uh varieties and uh yeah they are

16:34

they come from a lot of different locations around the world uh which i’m really

16:40

interesting about our about our houseplants um uh and yeah they’ve just been grown

16:45

to be to be sold as a product in a in a greenhouse um and uh and so

16:52

yeah it took some time to think through what uh what was going to be the right uh the

16:58

right balance of um uh but even the plants that i’ve propagated

17:04

myself uh like at home and that i’ve been caring for for some time initially started as

17:10

uh yeah like a a product that was purchased in a store or we lost lindsay

17:19

so we of course want to talk about vacuum forming

17:26

right um and that process so you’ve prepared a video

17:33

um so we can all sort of see what that process kind of looks like um so maybe sophia if

17:39

you’re able if if that video will work uh if you could pull that up for us

17:48

oh here we go yeah so um so i’m just gonna talk over this

17:54

it it saves me from having to like run to the garage and set up the vacuum former while we’re live um but we’ll maybe we’ll even just

18:01

play it a couple times so folks can see it um so uh i first need to thank

18:06

uh my very dear friend uh colleague and collaborator alex linfield who

18:11

um amid major coveted stress uh and not knowing whether i was gonna have access to the facilities i needed

18:19

um built me a or built us a vacuum former um because

18:25

alex uh linfield is a hero so um this is a very diy at home uh vacuum

18:33

uh former um and uh and so the the process itself is

18:38

pretty straightforward you’re taking a clear sheet of uh petg

18:44

plastic or pet g and that stands for i had to write it down because i always forget polyethylene

18:50

pterophalate glycol and so it’s a really thermo thermo it’s a

18:55

thermoplastic it has great form ability it’s used in consumer and commercial processes

19:01

um it’s the highly recyclable um whatever that means anymore

19:08

uh and it’s sort of has a crystal clear finish um and so uh

19:15

the plastic sheet gets locked into a frame and then you just sit uh for nine

19:20

minutes and watch it melt um which is quite nice uh to do over and over again it’s got that

19:26

repeatability feeling of print making and so um once it has the right amount of um

19:32

slang as we like to call it uh it’s a technical term um you then turn

19:38

on a vacuum and so the base that the plant is sitting on uh has hundreds of holes drilled into it

19:45

and then it’s like a airtight chamber the shop vac is then connected to

19:50

so you’re melting plastic and then you’re turning on this vacuum and then you just drop the sheet of plastic over whatever

19:58

you want to create a form out of um and you can sort of see that happening

20:04

repeatedly there um and so as i said earlier i was introduced to vacuum forming at the band

20:10

center because i’d created a previous body of work that was dealing with transparency

20:16

and i was really interested in transparency in two-dimensional images um and so

20:23

uh yeah the wonderful supportive folks working at the band center at the time

20:29

um said oh you should look at vacuum forming um and because i was working with plants

20:35

there you know i did a few tests and i was like i think we have to vacuum form a plant just to see what happens

20:41

um and this is uh what happens um

20:48

and so yeah it’s a pretty like uh i’ve been referring to it as like a gesture um because it

20:55

when you do it and when you see it done like it always kind of feels a little bit like

21:00

um it’s a bit anxiety-inducing and and so yeah the original forms that

21:07

i did at the band center just sort of lived on the wall in my studio for the five weeks while i was there and i

21:14

just thought about them for a long time um and certainly i uh thought

21:20

that that this would be a thing that i would photograph which i have have been doing um uh but i don’t

21:26

i don’t think at that time that i ever thought that i would really show the the forms yeah yeah

21:33

i don’t think we need to play it again i think i think we i think it’s okay um unless lindsay do

21:39

you want to play well that’s great and so april your your original intention with the vacuum

21:44

forming was just to uh make objects that you would then

21:50

document i think so um it really was not part of my

21:57

plan it was just this material thing that happens when you’re in the studio and people are making recommendations

22:03

based on your work and what you’re interested in and so yeah uh and certainly i have made

22:11

um images uh from from the forums and i am uh interested in continuing to document

22:17

them that way but um those don’t seem to have the same uh effect or

22:23

impact on people um as seen actual plant um sort of like in trapped in or

22:30

protected by or in stuck in the form um in the room

22:35

in real life yeah yeah and i mean there’s definitely um an emotional kind of side to it

22:43

uh and as you say that that comes maybe comes across uh a little bit more when you are seeing

22:49

the actual plants rather than a representation of um but i wonder

22:56

if you can talk a little bit about the sort of emotional side of things and

23:02

maybe how you feel about encasing these plants in in plastic

23:08

like i think um you know you also talk a lot about um care and there was definitely you

23:13

know there’s been a process of you know raising although some of them were purchased

23:19

uh you raised some of them from little plant babies

23:25

so maybe how how do you feel about it and how do you want your audience to feel about it

23:32

yeah good question um yeah it uh it’s certainly the most

23:39

uncomfortable i’ve ever been and making making art um but i think that that

23:47

like has been a thing that’s been um provoking me or like that i need to just like continue to pay attention to you

23:54

um and uh and yeah i’ve had a real range of um of

24:00

reaction uh to to the work uh as it’s been developing in my studio um lots of colleagues and friends have

24:07

been really generous with their time and have stopped in and looked at it and offered feedback um

24:13

and uh and there’s been yeah like a range of perspectives um and the things the way that people

24:20

respond uh to the work um certainly i um yeah i think i’m sort of

24:28

um trying to like uh pick at uh complacency a little bit about um

24:36

rampant consumerism and single-use plastic and packaging um

24:43

as as real problems that we need to pay some attention to um but also

24:50

i think further than that that’s maybe like an easier surface read but further than that just thinking about

24:56

um our our reciprocal relationship to uh to the natural world and um

25:04

the way uh that often um late-stage capitalism and colonialism

25:10

uh positions us as separate from uh separate from the natural world and seeing ourselves as not a part of that

25:17

system uh when ultimately um yeah we you know we are a full part of

25:23

this system and a different way of uh looking at plants and looking at the outside world and thinking about

25:30

you know if i can if i can extend this great care uh you know to this potted house plant

25:35

in my home or in my office um how do i how do i kind of take that care and extend it to the greater world

25:43

as well um and so uh it is uncomfortable work and also

25:50

um you know i uh yeah i i don’t know how the plants are going

25:56

to fare um being being kind of completely sealed and the like first stage of

26:04

forming uh drops a single sheet of plastic over the plant um and then the back is still open to uh to

26:12

oxygen um uh to breathing uh or to co2 rather um and to receiving

26:18

water and um but the plants in the gallery uh you know museums have have constraints and so

26:24

they are completely sealed um and so uh

26:30

different different plants will respond differently um to those conditions and and so

26:36

there’s a there’s a form behind me i know you can’t see it well um and so this was sort of a

26:42

part of multiple tests uh that we ran um there was lots of prototyping um and uh so that

26:50

plant has been completely sealed in that form it doesn’t uh there are no holes it’s not receiving water um and it

26:58

has been fully encased in plastic for two months uh and it is still very much alive and

27:03

in fact making some new growth um so it went through a bit of a sad stage uh where it was quite stressed

27:09

um and uh and yeah now there is uh certainly some new growth happening um

27:16

and i’ve been documenting it daily to kind of report that change as well and yeah so that makes me feel a little

27:23

bit better i guess that’s what i’m trying to say um yeah like it’s kind of sad work for

27:31

sad sad times

27:36

it doesn’t it’s i mean it is sad work for sad times but it does have this very kind of glossy

27:44

optimistic um to it and i think that comes through

27:52

with like the gradient that you’ve you’ve hung it on um it definitely has that sort of like poppy um feel to

28:00

it uh and i know that um you know there are of course many

28:06

considerations and many decisions um in the piece you know

28:11

whether or not to use tropical plants what types of plants and things like that and i think the the

28:16

background um was also one of those um considerations

28:21

and so maybe you could um share just a little bit about um how you came to this uh gradient

28:30

background in the end and and what uh you hope it signifies yeah um i think

28:38

uh there’s a couple there’s a couple factors uh that led me to the gradient and

28:44

part of it uh for me is just uh this like nice nod um to

28:50

to printmaking um and to my uh sort of foundations and printmaking um

28:57

but further than that uh i think like um i’m attempting to sort of uh

29:03

represent a sunset uh but a really um synthetic uh or very simulated version um

29:11

so sort of thinking about our contemporary conditions as um uh yeah a bit of a

29:18

like melancholy uh swan song the sun is sunny setting hopefully we’re headed

29:23

toward um revision of a better future um but i can also imagine

29:31

a future where we’re just um sort of living simulated uh realities um and so it’s a bit of a

29:38

thinking about the yeah synthetic versions or representations of the natural world and

29:43

that sort of loss of experience direct experience with it

29:49

um so the entire installation as you kind of mentioned is a little bit

29:55

of an experiment um kind of related also to your

30:00

plant that’s just behind you there um and there are some knowns but lots of

30:07

unknowns um kind of inherent in the work um so what do you think will happen to the

30:14

insulation uh throughout the run of the exhibition because it’s up until

30:20

the first couple days of january so it does have quite a bit of a run um so what do you think um and what

30:27

are you kind of expecting of the work over time um

30:33

it’s hard to know uh i think uh some plants will fare better than

30:40

others in these conditions um and i guess uh

30:47

what i what i don’t want for the work uh is for you know in four weeks uh for

30:53

someone to go to the gallery and just be confronted by a wall of dead plants um and so

31:01

um yeah i think uh you know we’ve had some conversations with the

31:06

with the curatorial and with the prep team about what we can and can’t uh do and i think um you know we’ve sort

31:13

of agreed that i’m just gonna keep keep checking in uh on on the plants

31:18

um and that throughout the exhibition um there might be adjustments made um

31:25

either replacements of new plants and new forms um but i’ve also been documenting the

31:31

work as well so sort of thinking about documenting the plant um right when it’s formed it’s kind of

31:38

like at its peak it’s healthy it’s happy um and what that means to

31:43

um yeah like to swap out of a solid form uh thing that’s been allowed to sort of

31:50

you know die or suffer or degrade um with an image of it sort of at its best which

31:55

you know it’s something i’m going to keep thinking about it’s a real reflection of like how we use images and social media um to sort of

32:03

suggest uh when we’re all at our best or at our peak um

32:08

but that the real underlying conditions uh aren’t really um in in our favor to to

32:15

survive in that way yeah if somebody visits in two months they might see

32:22

some new plants they might see some images of plants they might see some

32:28

some whole plants this way spots in the wall yeah i mean there is i think the word

32:35

experiment is a is a good one um and like you know we run enough tests to feel confident that

32:41

it won’t be a total disaster but but yeah i mean it’s a long a long run

32:48

and in conditions that aren’t favorable to their survival and so i think

32:54

yeah i’m committed to continue to check in and just see see what see what happens um

33:02

and again all of the plants are gonna respond so differently there’s some there’s some succulents in there there’s

33:07

an aloe in there and those plants um have entirely

33:12

evolved uh based on um uh drought conditions right

33:19

they’re potentially better suited than these sort of like broad leaf tropical plants that um almost as soon

33:26

as the plastic touched them they kind of curl up in themselves and this is another really beautiful thing

33:32

that the plastic does and that you can’t quite see in the photo but if you go see the work in

33:38

person is the the vacuum takes a perfect beautiful impression of all of the details

33:44

uh of all of the leaves and the plant and then over time the plant is kind of shrinking

33:49

away and growing and shifting and changing from that and so there’s already this kind of ghost image uh of what the plant

33:57

was and embedded in the plastic you can kind of see the change happening

34:03

uh through through the change from the form to the plant when you come in yeah i think those those traces that the

34:11

the plant in its kind of original placement leaves on those plas that plastic i

34:16

think is super um interesting um do you think that you will

34:25

use those plastic forms in any way like after the the piece comes down like are you interested in

34:31

kind of taking those forms and continuing to experiment with them yeah sadly i have a real heightened

34:38

interest in the plastic now okay yeah it’s a real love

34:43

hate like i would love to not um

34:48

yeah so i don’t know how well this is going to show up on my screen but you know there’s a form here that i had

34:55

to release a release a friend from um and so yeah the detail

35:00

uh and you know what like i like to think of this as a as a print right it’s an impression

35:07

um and so yeah i i’m already you know like my brain is already two

35:12

years from now thinking about a new body of work that um yeah is taking these impressions and thinking about about them as an

35:19

image or as a way to make an image or yeah certainly

35:25

well we will be very excited to see where it goes um

35:31

april did you have any sort of last comments that you wanted to leave

35:36

um with sort of what you hope that viewers take away from the work before you wrap up um

35:44

i can’t think of anything off the top um when i visited the gallery on sunday

35:50

uh there was a family uh in the gallery um taking uh taking family portraits and

35:56

selfies with the puns and the gradient in the background which um was really nice to witness it was a

36:02

really funny nice nice moment i mean i’ve never thought of my work as like a selfie background and

36:07

now i do uh which is great um uh no i think i think we covered lots of

36:14

ground uh but um certainly i would extend an invitation that folks can be in touch

36:20

with me if they wanna uh speak further about the work i’m still like really really thinking through it which

36:27

feels funny because it’s up and everyone has access to it um and i think i’m still thinking and

36:33

processing through it and so i’m happy to remain in conversation about it and yeah and i want to just

36:40

take a moment to extend my thanks to the curators and also all of the other artists whose work is in the biennial um

36:47

the for me the great benefit of these group shows is seeing your work in in context with other other artists

36:54

working at the same time and trying to understand it sort of in a in a larger context and

37:00

and so of course covet restraints have meant that we haven’t all been able to gather or to even meet each other um but

37:07

yeah i just wanted to extend gratitude to everyone else who’s sharing in the biennial experience well thank you um

37:16

yeah and we’ll we’ll hope to see lots of your work as an instagram backdrop

37:26

please tag me so i can see them [Laughter] all right thank you so much april thank

37:33

you lindsay all right bye

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