0:04

hello there everyone thank you for joining me this evening my name is sarah huffman and i’m the art

0:10

rental and sales associate here at art gallery of alberta we welcome you to our meet the artist

0:15

series a part of aga live presented by epcor’s heart and soul fund here at the gallery we embrace the

0:21

teachings of tatewa a kree phrase meaning welcome there is room in our house even the virtual one

0:28

everyone is welcome i’m delighted to be your host for this hour joining me today is artist sydney

0:34

lancaster before we dive into the subject hi sydney

0:39

hi sarah hello everybody good to see you and you’re smiling thank you

0:44

so i’d like to highlight for you folks that this is an interactive event and we would love to hear from you throughout

0:49

so feel free to reach out through the chat function and we will answer any questions that come up and before we

0:56

get started i’m going to read sydney’s bio for everyone so sydney is

1:01

an art is an edmonton based multidisciplinary artist and writer her work has been presented in solo and

1:08

group exhibitions in public artist run and commercial galleries in alberta british columbia

1:14

ontario quebec and newfoundland uh oh sorry last spot there we go uh

1:22

lancaster has held residencies at hardcourt house alberta gross moore national park red rabbit

1:28

quarters art society ruth cars center for dance as well as maine and station she’s

1:34

received support for her work from the edmonton arts council edmonton heritage council alberta

1:40

foundation for the arts and the canada council her practice considers the intersection of place

1:47

objects memory and time and includes site-specific installation and sculpture

1:53

photography video and audio works print making and mixed media found object assemblage

2:00

sydney has worked in artist run centers and has been an advocate volunteer and board member for various

2:06

organizations supporting human lgbtq s rights housing and homeless

2:12

advocacy and artist rights over the last 33 years including past advocacy director

2:18

and past president of the visual arts alberta carfac so sydney is a wonderful busy artist

2:26

that was definitely a mouthful of a bio and i’m so excited to dive into all of these things that

2:31

you wonderfully do sydney and it’s it is such an honor for me to have this conversation with you

2:38

and continue to get to know you um i’ve had a couple of interactions with you with art rental and sales and

2:44

i’m so excited to get to know more about your practice oh well thank you very much sarah it’s

2:49

uh it’s a lovely opportunity and thank you very much to the aga for inviting me to share a little bit

2:56

about my work and and all the crazy things i do so it’s lovely thank you

3:02

absolutely so where do you want to get started do you want to chat about

3:08

um how about when when did you know you were going to be an artist oh boy um okay

3:15

well i think i’ve always wanted to be an artist um

3:22

and it took it was a long a a long and winding road to get here

3:27

um for a variety of reasons but uh i was finally able to pretty much

3:33

dedicate myself to uh full-time practice about 15 years ago um and i really

3:41

haven’t looked back since then and i’m i’m very very grateful for that opportunity um

3:48

it took it as i say it took a long time to get to get to this place um my

3:55

mother was an artist she was a painter and a potter and my dad was a potter as well but he was a

4:00

a broadcast journalist um and so my initial training uh was

4:06

actually in in literature oh wow and yeah so i took uh took a degree

4:14

uh in uh in english at the university of alberta and i had actually started graduate work there as well uh and emma in english and

4:21

then sort of went yes no it was not it’s not where i want to be yeah um and so did a bunch of other things

4:27

for a while and finally was in a position where i i could i could take the dive into and

4:32

to make it work so yeah absolutely that is so wonderful

4:37

and when you when you started your own practice and being able to go into more full-time work

4:43

where did you begin um i took a lot of cues actually initially

4:50

from um from the literature on from from the critical theory that i had been

4:56

i had been reading at the university so i’ve always been really interested in

5:02

ideas of memory and storytelling the way the way we tell stories about ourselves

5:09

right so ideas of identity really and how and how we situate ourselves

5:16

in places and in times and how we gather things

5:24

uh to ourselves that are important to us for one one reason or another you know

5:29

different objects and that kind of thing um so i started very early my very early

5:36

work was actually a lot of found object um assemblage yeah though wall-based but but but quite

5:44

funny and quite sculptural um and so that’s where i sort of got into the idea

5:49

of of reassembling narratives and going where are the gaps where are the where the ways in

5:56

um so that’s how that started and then i as as i worked that way for a few years the

6:02

work started getting bigger and

6:10

i realized that that what i needed to do was work larger work ins in space

6:17

really work in space um and so that’s when i started to turn my

6:23

attention to um building things in the landscape

6:29

and that opened up a whole new way of working for me

6:35

and and a very different way to bring threads together um

6:40

[Music] that i was interested in there’s there’s a memory in the land there’s a memory in

6:47

landscape there’s a different sense of time that you can embrace when

6:52

you work out in the land um and and it’s allowed me to bring in

6:59

threads of you know scientific research and you know geology and all kinds of things come into play

7:08

when you’re working in the landscape but then the problem comes in

7:14

how do you take something that you’ve built in the landscape and and and bring it to

7:22

people because making work is about having a conversation it’s about exploring ideas together um

7:30

even if you’re at one remove and it’s somebody who’s seeing your work in a gallery somewhere far away from where you are at that

7:37

moment it’s still about engaging on a very on a very um

7:42

intimate level in a way uh because making art i mean if if i could

7:50

say everything that i wanted to say in words i would

7:56

just right but the beautiful thing about about making visual art is that i can

8:04

find ways to say things that i can’t find the words for

8:09

and so the neatest experience has been people being around when people respond

8:15

to the work that i have on exhibition you know in a show or something you go

8:20

oh so this makes me think of or i remember when or whatev you know and immediately

8:27

there’s there’s a a deep connection

8:33

to s to a humanness that we all share so that’s

8:40

that’s i mean really sort of the the impetus behind the way i the way i work the way i work now

8:45

absolutely wonderfully said thank you that was awesome and oh sorry go ahead

8:53

okay okay i was going to say um and now uh with the restrictions that we

8:59

are currently with and everything like that are you seeing any uh challenges in your work with that

9:05

human connection currently and how are you kind of um navigating that as an artist well it’s

9:13

been complicated um you know for sure i’ve been very fortunate in that

9:18

um the work that i i’m the project that i’m working on right now um is in

9:25

a fairly remote rural area and so when i’ve had the opportunity to go

9:30

out there and work i can work alone and i can work even if even if other people are around on the

9:37

on the land at that time we can all be very very well distanced so that’s

9:42

that’s been great obviously traveling

9:48

um to other parts of the country which is something that i’ve been doing for several years now for other projects

9:55

um is not so easy to do right now so it’s been it this year has very so far has been very

10:02

much a hunker down and work more locally yeah you have to kind of separate each individual

10:10

piece to say i’ll do this step this time i’ll do this at this time yeah absolutely absolutely and you just i

10:16

mean artists are pretty adaptable folks so yeah you just you just figure out what you can do

10:22

and and do the best you can um but i’ve been i was very fortunate this year i was able to uh

10:28

receive um uh creators reserve grant from the edmonton arts

10:33

council which is was fantastic it was a it was such

10:39

such a relief to have a little bit of funding when everything shut down because my everything i had planned for the year

10:47

disappeared yeah yeah it disappeared as soon as as soon as the first lockdown came in the spring uh

10:53

so that was a loss of opportunities and and income um though that that grant was

11:00

was a very very welcome thing but it allowed me to take a deep dive into this project that has been sort of

11:06

on the back burner and i’ve been digging into it and then working on other things and digging into it again and working

11:11

so so it’s it was it was a good opportunity fortunately um

11:18

i was able to mount an exhibition this fall at snap gallery which i didn’t think was

11:24

i mean you know for a time we were going uh is this even going to happen how are we going to make

11:30

this work um and we were able to do it we were able to get the get the work up on the walls we were able to do um

11:38

a socially distanced limited number of people in the gallery at a time

11:43

opening um which i attended virtually my collaborator scott smallwood also

11:50

attended virtually on zoom so we were carried around on an ipad so we could say hi to people

11:56

um but it was wonderful to actually be able to put work on the walls

12:01

exhibit and have people um [Music]

12:06

engage with the work in person um so i feel very i’m very grateful for all

12:12

of those opportunities it’s been a tremendously difficult year for everybody and and i think

12:18

um the organizations like snap like the aga the other artist runs in the country the other

12:23

museums and galleries and and project spaces in the country have all stepped up tremendously to do whatever

12:30

they can to support artists and to support the ongoing engagement with artwork

12:36

because it’s stuff that sustains us you know it really does especially especially now

12:42

yeah yeah absolutely yeah just looking in the chat here we have

12:47

sheila and anna hello sheila and anna thank you very much hello sheila hello anna lovely to

12:53

have you join us thank you thank you for coming absolutely well and that just plays into that human

12:59

connection too and absolutely to have to have folks come in and join in the conversation

13:04

and get to ask you questions and so i’m very much looking forward to the rest of this

13:10

event absolutely um so i guess well maybe we should share some pictures and look at some

13:17

stuff um what i thought i would start with just by way of introduction to my

13:22

to my work was just take everybody through um a few recent projects and

13:29

um just to give you a sense of how how my process works and and and how i

13:36

bring things from the landscape to the to the gallery um if i think about the way i

13:43

i do that as sort of a process of translation you know as as i said i can’t replicate

13:51

what i find or make in the natural environment in a gallery setting it’s an artificial setting

13:57

um and and obviously often at a distance from where i’m working

14:02

so my efforts tend to be to be focused on convey conveying both both

14:09

the

14:14

oh as an artist so it’s about combining

14:22

those those sort of two sources of of understanding and and it’s it’s really my hope that i

14:29

can that i can create a space for others emotional space

14:34

mental space psychological space um for people to think and reflect about

14:39

what’s what’s in the work and hopefully learn something about their own

14:45

understanding um of the of their world and and and the place in

14:50

their place in it um so we could go to the the the first

14:55

slide fantastic um so this is this goes back a few years

15:01

this is um uh a gallery view of an exhibition

15:06

uh called 21st century nesting practices that i had at the mcmullen gallery in

15:11

edmonton in 2018 um and this was this is

15:19

is uh was the last show for this work i don’t think i’ll be showing it again

15:24

um it was the culmination of of several years work uh this whole body of

15:30

work started in 2012 when i was um uh artist in residence

15:36

at uh harcourt house center here in edmonton for the year which was a wonderful opportunity to to

15:42

take a huge deep dive into into making work it was really great um

15:49

and it’s interesting working on projects over over a period of time because they each use so much

15:58

i learned so much about myself and about why i make art and how i make art in

16:04

in developing this work um i definitely started in one emotional space and ended

16:10

up in another right and it’s probably this is probably the most

16:15

personal body of work that i have made so far i mean they’re all very personal to me

16:20

but this would this was a very this was a a very big heart project for

16:26

me um because it started it came out of

16:31

um aggrieving the loss of both my parents and my dad had my dad had passed away a

16:38

number of years uh earlier he died in 1991 but i was in a place i had a i had a

16:45

baby at the time and i was in grad school and i never had i didn’t have the opportunity to grieve

16:51

and then my mom passed in in um 2004 and at that time

16:59

um i was immersed in a whole bunch of other things and other jobs and i was

17:06

in a new relationship where i i became a step parent

17:13

to three amazing humans um and i have a daughter of my own as well so it was that you know bring the

17:19

blended family together and make all of that stuff work so it was a very busy yeah crazy

17:26

wonderful time but again i wasn’t able to grieve

17:32

at that moment in time or not fully so i started making this work um i had done

17:38

a lot of writing and it just wasn’t getting where it needed to go right so that’s where this project

17:44

started it started in in looking at the nest as a a phenomenological object

17:53

right it’s you know there’s this association with the nest and we talk about nesting

17:59

right oh i’m gonna go home and nest and it’s something very safe and cozy and warm and and and all

18:06

of those things but but what if what if your nest isn’t safe

18:11

what if your nest isn’t that warm place what if what if it’s problematic what if

18:17

there’s loss involved there’s what what if all of that stuff has to happen

18:22

so the work started in that place

18:28

but by the time i brought it to the mcmullen in 2018 i had kept on going into the

18:35

work and i had i had re-exhibited portions of the project in um in 2015 and 2016

18:43

um at the art gallery st albert and gallery 501 in show park so by the time

18:49

i brought it to the mcmullen i was in a different place and what i

18:55

could offer then the mcmullen galleries in the university of alberta hospital and it’s a wonderful place for

19:03

both the staff and the patients at the hospital to come and just spend time

19:09

so what i wanted to offer in that last exhibition was a shift to a positive place

19:18

a place where you could rest where you could find a nest yeah just be

19:25

for a little while and just and just put everything aside for a little while and stop um

19:33

and from what i gather from the responses to to the exhibition at

19:40

the mullen i was fairly successful um i heard stories about people coming in

19:46

to the gallery and lying on the floor underneath the nest wow where you can

19:51

see all the all the patterns yeah and just and just being there for a while and

19:58

that was just the most remarkable thing for me it was i i felt so grateful

20:05

to be able to do what i do to make that possible for somebody so it

20:11

was it was it was a nice that was a really nice moment um we could go to the next slide okay

20:17

for sure um so these are two pieces uh

20:24

from that body of work um occupied nest and empty nest not

20:29

terribly imaginative titles but they do get the point across um these are uh

20:36

photographs they’re they’re gel transfer printed images um they’re both uh four feet by

20:43

four feet so it’s this big scale um that allows you to kind of

20:49

dive into this very intimate space um so that was sort of some of the the play

20:56

that i was working with in in in this body of work um let’s

21:02

go to the next one

21:07

this is another piece a major piece that came out of

21:13

this project uh this is a shot from uh uh gallery 501 in sherwood park

21:19

when it was installed there are 360 images of nests most of them are magpie nests

21:27

because that’s what happens in edmondson yep and i i spent a year and a half

21:33

photographing magpie nests walking around all times a year a lot in the winter because of course that’s when they’re

21:39

they’re best exposed right um and and you can see those structures and see that

21:45

get down to the essential nature of what and what a nest is that that space that holds a lot of

21:52

potential um so there’s there’s 360 of those images one

21:58

for every degree in a circle right so if you sit in the middle of a

22:04

nest you can look all the way around right so it was about

22:09

how do you look in and how do you look out simultaneously and and how does what you carry in the world

22:16

in yourself impact how you see and and how does that color your

22:23

perception and when do we just see

22:28

and when do we look but not see you know the interesting thing about those magpie nests

22:34

i never found two that were the same size i never found two that were the same shape

22:40

um i never found two that were in exactly the same position in a tree even if the tree was almost identical

22:47

and that’s the thing right we go through so much of our lives um

22:52

looking but not seeing it’s like oh a nest oh another asked oh another nest

22:59

but if you pay attention it’s the the small things that teach you so much about

23:07

what it is to live in the world and and and how much beauty there can be

23:13

that was all floating around and all of that work too absolutely do you know how long it it took you said

23:20

about a year a year and a half to take all of these all of these

23:25

wow yeah at least um i think i still no actually you know what longer

23:33

i i’m i’m i’m lying i just make myself a liar i started in 2012

23:40

and then i finally finished the 360 i selected and edited and printed

23:47

the last image in 2015. wow yeah three years yeah yeah all together

23:54

just the shooting was probably half that time right right yeah and then uh did you

24:02

have did you know what exactly you wanted to come out of taking those photos when you were taking

24:08

them did you have that end goal of this piece or were you kind of going

24:14

i’ll take one here and there and and see where it goes i think it started initially as just

24:21

um an observational process you know i knew i was working

24:28

with the nest as a metaphor i knew i wanted to work with that that symbolism

24:33

and and and with the idea there’s um what prompted the use of the nest for

24:41

this project as as as an image um was re-reading a uh

24:46

an essay by um jason bacillard he has this uh really lovely book i

24:52

recommend it to everybody um uh called the poetics of space and in it there’s there’s an essay

25:00

on nests and he talks about how humans respond to

25:07

seeing a nest in the in the back garden seeing birds that kind of thing but i wanted to

25:15

problematize and trouble one thing because he was sort of

25:20

he was taking an approach that that assumed a universality of experience

25:27

and i i thought that was a very dangerous place to go it’s not it doesn’t work that way um

25:35

uh and and assuming that people are going to respond in a universally universally positive

25:40

way to ideas of home and get us into a lot of trouble because there are lots of folks who

25:48

don’t have that positive experience so i just wanted to to work that through so that’s where

25:54

that’s where the the the process of just going out and observing and looking

26:00

began and then as i kept on taking photographs i i recognized that the differentiation

26:07

that i made between looking and seeing yeah really seeing and then i thought okay so

26:12

where does that put me in relation to the nest that i’m talking about

26:18

and that’s where the idea of of being able to go look at the full circle came to me so

26:24

yeah that long sort of traveling journey it’s always a discovery absolutely it’s

26:31

it’s not one linear line to get you from point a to point b and sometimes it is and that’s great but

26:36

sometimes it’s not and that’s great too i don’t think i’ve had a linear journey

26:42

in anything i’ve ever done and that’s okay you know that’s okay that’s what makes it interesting right

26:49

right um so yeah this is i just wanted to um

26:54

show you guys uh this piece this is also from from 21st century nesting practices and

27:00

this is this was a bit of a uh this is a really interesting piece

27:06

to work on for me because it was bringing together a lot of those threads into into one piece

27:13

um there are gel transfer prints of nests printed on mylar on these and also

27:20

on transparent silk organza in the center panel but they’re very human scaled right

27:25

they’re two feet wide by 84 inches tall and

27:31

in the gallery you could walk between them so there was this sort of moving between

27:37

the trees idea in the work um but in addition to the nest images i

27:45

actually wove into um the front and back

27:50

panels um old family photographs um my parents when they were much

27:56

younger uh baby photographs of me baby photographs of my dad

28:02

um that kind of thing so it was this this idea of really re-weaving

28:09

and then and weaving all of those the threads of who we each

28:15

were as individuals together um and the back panel also contains um

28:22

some poetry that i wrote uh and that’s printed on both sides of the panel so you see

28:29

one half of the story on one side of the panel and the other half of the story on the other

28:34

you can it’s transparent enough it’s mylar so you can you can see the words that are printed

28:41

backwards but they’re hard to make out so

28:46

you have half the story and then you have the other half of the story so all of those you know without without

28:52

the laboring the metaphor and the cliche you know two sides of the coin

28:59

but those were very personal memories um one from my childhood when i was about

29:07

four and i found a robin’s egg um you know i took it at my mom it’s

29:13

like oh can can we save it can we save it can we have a baby robin for a pet and it was so fragile it was so fragile

29:19

it broke in my hands yeah i sort of rolled it into into my mom’s house actually and

29:25

it cracked and i was just like i was devastated i was so crushed you know um so that you know that was a

29:33

way of speaking to that loss and and all of the losses that were in in that work in the whole body of work the other part

29:41

of the story was having my own daughter um and she was about

29:49

five i guess maybe four or five so not much older than i was when when that happened when i was a kid and

29:55

um a baby robin had fallen out of a tree in our backyard and we managed to catch it scoop it up

30:04

we had a dog that wanted to eat it and we managed to scoop it up before we before the dog got to it and we actually

30:11

brought it inside and got a cage and all of that and raised raised the bird and released it

30:18

so that was my that was my releasing of of all of the

30:24

the stuff and just going yeah i’m at peace with this now yeah so yeah so very personal work but

30:32

things are people without having the backstory you can still dive inside it and and

30:40

and hopefully take something away from it yeah yeah absolutely yeah so this was a fun project this was

30:48

amazing what what a great opportunity this was um these are shots of

30:55

[Music] a very large installation

31:01

um i can attest to that it was very large this is an installation called boundary

31:06

time surface and uh it was built in grossmoor national park in 2014

31:15

at a place called green point uh which is really as you can see from the photographs really beautiful

31:21

um i was fortunate enough to have been given a residency at grossmore

31:27

national park they have a uh a program called art in the park that

31:32

is um co-sponsored by parks canada and uh the rooms gallery in

31:39

saint john’s newfoundland uh and st john’s receives um the rooms receives

31:46

uh funding to support the artist in the program and um through the canada council which

31:52

is where my canada council funding that you mentioned came from and um parks canada provides the artists

31:59

of residence with a place to live in a studio space so it was a fantastic

32:04

opportunity um and i was out there for five weeks um doing research and uh

32:12

and building this project and this was an opportunity for me to

32:18

work collaboratively with my partner who is um a geologist and has

32:25

worked and done research on the west coast of newfoundland where grossmorn is is located and all up and down that

32:31

coast so it was a very very interesting

32:37

time and an interesting way of approaching work because i really had to learn to talk

32:44

science and he had to learn how to talk art which was really neat but it was about

32:50

bringing the two disciplines together to speak about what they both could

32:56

offer so this spot in grossmourne

33:02

where i built the installation is the internationally recognized

33:08

boundary between between two periods in geological time between the cambrian

33:16

period and the ordovician period um

33:21

so it was one of those things where we dove into the research about the development

33:28

of boundary strata types globally and then

33:36

took that research and went out onto the shoreline and actually found where they had

33:42

determined that this boundary should be and walked out on the wave cut platform

33:51

that you see in the in the top image at low tide and actually traced that that bed in the limestone and shale

33:59

out as far as we could go to the low tide point so that was where i was going to build

34:05

the installation and then we spent about three and a half weeks gathering the materials by hand

34:11

up and down the shore um each of those poles is between about two meters and three meters in height

34:20

and there each of those is supported by um cobbles that we found on the beaches

34:26

and along the shoreline that we carried on our backs on back in backpacks

34:31

um and built karen’s at regular intervals out on that on that bed um

34:41

so it was one of those situations where you have the opportunity to

34:50

to make work of of a really sort of tremendous scale but

34:57

because it was in a um a national park

35:03

i had to be extremely careful about how i made the work that i made i could

35:09

leave it was you know take only pictures leave no mark um so all of all of everything that went

35:18

into the installation was found in that immediate area um the installation was 150 meters long

35:26

and um it was built on the falling tide on a single half day

35:34

by myself my partner and several partners several volunteers from the area and

35:40

from parks canada who wanted to be involved in the project so we built it as the tide went out and

35:46

then watched the tide come in and take it all apart wow so it lasted

35:53

i think the last of the the last of the polls actually came down

35:58

about 48 hours later just with the movement of the tide um so behind this

36:06

and and that that idea of of of fixed points and boundaries in

36:12

scientific discourse i was also interested in the idea of of

36:18

just the way the way human beings are interested in laying claim to space

36:27

right right it gets back to that relationship between identity and space and and and how we situate ourselves

36:35

on the planet um so i started thinking about

36:40

borders and and limits and definition and who gets the right who

36:46

has the right to define things who has the right to say yes that is the cambrian or division

36:51

boundary yes that is range road 263. yes that is township road right the

36:59

dominion land survey that this this it was a way of bringing the prairie landscape

37:06

that i grew up in that i live in to bear on on a on a much larger scale

37:13

of thinking um so who gets to decide what the borders are how fixed are those

37:20

borders how do we is that simply a means by which

37:29

we seek permanence in a world that is never permanent it’s always in movement

37:36

it’s always in transformation and and how does that fit into time

37:42

you know i’m sitting on a shore with rocks that

37:48

are hundreds of millions of years old yeah and simultaneously there’s geological

37:57

time all around me by cycle there’s the passage of a single day from

38:03

sunrise to sunset there’s the marked time of my own body

38:09

my own life there’s clock time all of those things all at once

38:17

and we sort of we we want to cut them all up and make them manageable

38:24

so it was a way of talking about all of those things in a very simple way

38:31

so people could take what they want from it and run with it

38:38

um i wanted to find a way to to talk about all of those issues all of

38:45

those big ideas those big philosophical questions in a way it was still

38:50

fairly accessible um [Music] so it was a really neat experience being

38:56

out on the rocks all day documenting this thing in video and photographs and time lapse

39:04

um and at the same time talking to people about it and it was amazing how people just got

39:11

it it’s like yeah time right rocks time splitting space

39:19

all it was just it was you could see you can see that this sort of click click click click it was a it was

39:24

a really really lovely period of time to sit with that work um

39:31

but also made it extremely challenging in terms of how to bring it bring all of those ideas together

39:37

without it being a complete disaster when i brought it to the gallery which

39:44

leads me to the next slide yeah um so one of the best ways i’ve found to

39:51

actually look at ideas of time and process and change

39:57

is video and so this is uh an image from the discovery center

40:04

gallery i was able to bring back develop work from the initial project in 2014

40:10

um and bring it back to the discovery center gallery in 2016 for the um

40:17

the duration of the 2016 um park season which was from may to october

40:23

so this uh video installation is about 20 feet long by about seven

40:30

feet high it’s over 14 panels and i actually mapped

40:38

the projections there are nine or uh 10 separate videos

40:44

um in this in this installation and i mapped each of those videos to

40:52

the individual panels so it works sculpturally as well as as a video you can see how

40:58

they’re they’re set at angles and in three-dimensional space so it was a way of

41:04

of talking about that place and the space and how things get divided up all all at

41:11

the same time um and there’s um there was an audio component to this as well

41:17

which we’re going to get to in just a second but it was a very much a new way of working i had worked a bit in video but

41:24

i had never worked in mapping

41:29

an installation of this scale before so it was a challenge i set my for myself and uh and it was really exciting and

41:37

nerve-wracking and stressful to work on but it was it was a lot of fun too um so there was this was a major

41:44

component but there were also tv works on the wall that i’ll show in just a second that that came out of this

41:50

yeah um so i am going to we’re going to cross our fingers and hope this works guys

41:57

i’m going to um share my screen and show you guys a little clip

42:05

from that um installation

42:10

so i gotta go here

42:17

ah my screen sharing no allow yes you could see my straight

42:25

though okay and we go off and we i know it’s pretty scary isn’t it okay

42:32

i am going to run this i’m gonna go big

42:50

that is so neat

43:12

okay um

43:17

okay there we go and then i move this down

43:24

and not share my screen anymore nice okay we’re back ah we’re in classic and

43:31

now we’re big okay great uh

43:37

yay it worked yeah i love it when technology works the way it’s supposed to right um so that gives you an indication of of

43:44

of what i was trying to capture right so there’s so there’s that the human making of a boundary yeah as

43:51

as part of the installation um as well as as just the the processes that were in

43:59

the natural processes that were in play in different different scales of time so we can move to the next slide okay

44:08

i gotta there we go so this is uh another iteration of the exhibition

44:14

um this was at the uh art gallery of saint albert in st albert alberta in 2019

44:20

and so it was a a a reworking i completely remapped the video to fit

44:26

the space so that was that was shown as you can see in those long vertical panels so there’s a lot of

44:33

going up and going down and moving across as well it was it was a different space to work

44:39

in i was also able to show you can see in the the middle

44:46

there’s the middle pair of images on the right hand side you can see um a shot of the time lapse

44:54

of the actual creation and dissolution of the original um installation that was the first time

45:00

i had been able to show that at scale um for this project was really

45:06

so that was really nice and i was able to dive back into the work that i had done in 2016 and create some

45:11

new work um and so there are four new pieces um uh wall-based pieces

45:19

that you see at the bottom uh that uh that i created for the show um the other

45:26

thing that was interesting is i revisited that idea of transparency and those hanging those hanging panels and took a long

45:34

shot photograph of the original installation down the line of poles and then printed

45:41

it very large on that transparent silk organza and that was suspended sculpturally in

45:48

the gallery in the space so that you could walk

45:53

down the installation so it was a way of of bringing that experience into a gallery setting

46:02

um so we’ll just go quickly through a few of the works that uh that came out of this

46:07

um yeah this is one this is uh also available at art rental and sales uh this is um a photograph

46:14

it’s um a 36 by 36 panel uh the actual um

46:23

bed that i that i took it from it’s a huge cliff face but the actual image itself

46:29

you know in in in real space on the cliff is probably 12 by 12

46:37

inches so it’s just just blowing up this playing around with with scale and with texture and the

46:44

other thing that i did when i when i printed this one and and the next image that we’re going to see is that i

46:50

cut up the image so that it was printed in individual panels

46:56

to reiterate that idea coming back to that prairie landscape that is in front of my understanding of space

47:03

um and talk sideways about borders and limits and and

47:09

containment and and and that push between the human desire to contain things and

47:17

the natural world which will not be contained right so and we can go to the next one

47:24

so the previous the previous image was an image of of um bedded slate and the interesting

47:30

thing about that cliff is that all the beds would have been laid down horizontally originally but

47:36

because of tectonic movement flipping action and and and earthquakes and

47:43

things like that the the beds have been tilted up right so that the the cliff is actually passed

47:49

vertical now wow and so what you see in outcrop is has everything that was flat has now

47:54

been flipped up and so when the wave hits all the waves hit that on edge it sort of breaks off in bits so you get

48:01

this this layering in space of a history of deposition

48:10

um that goes back into time so that idea of layering and memory comes

48:16

comes back over and over and over again in my work and this was one of the one of the clearest examples of

48:22

of of how that plays out in the natural world um so and we can go to the next one

48:31

this one was brand new for 2019 and getting back to that idea of of layering

48:36

i also wanted to really dig back into ways of understanding

48:43

landscape so the background to this piece is a is a gel transfer print of a

48:50

topographical map of the area and the coastline uh there’s another and these are all

48:56

offset on at different heights on on the panel

49:02

um there’s satellite imagery there uh from google earth and from imaps there’s

49:08

uh a photograph that i shot looking at the cliff from from the wave

49:14

cut platform at low tide and that blue patch up in the in the upper left of of your screen is actually an

49:22

enlargement of seismic

49:28

a seismic profile that was shown in the gulf of st lawrence uh off

49:34

outside the park that shows the reflectors of the

49:41

the layers of rock underneath wow what you see on the shore cool yeah

49:49

so different ways of bringing together different kinds of information and and different ways of seeing and

49:56

knowing and different different um perspectives and all of that

50:01

um and we can go to the next slide the thing that both my partner and i

50:08

really wanted to do coming through this project was to write about it and and to produce an artist’s book

50:14

and so fortunately uh for the 29 exhibition 2019 exhibition we were able to do just

50:20

that and uh we were able to get uh uh some funding from the albert foundation

50:27

of the arts to support the publication of a limited edition book uh by arts and heritage st albert

50:35

so that book is available there’s 200 copies in the whole entire world and it’s printed in full

50:43

color it’s an addition of 200 signed and numbered and it includes uh

50:50

photographs of the in initial installation um some uh selected photographs from

50:58

exhibition an essay by me an essay by

51:03

my partner dr john waldron um and an essay from melinda pinfold who is art

51:09

historian and critic who wanted to take on writing about the project and and uh and put her own spin on it so it

51:16

was a really wonderful way for me to bring back together

51:22

my my writing background and my my uh literary background and my

51:29

art practice so it was it was a tremendous opportunity um so the next thing i’d like to talk

51:37

about briefly um is the latest uh the latest project uh which just

51:44

closed um which is called macramerial um and this was at

51:52

uh snap gallery in edmonton and i’m going to share my screen again

51:58

and just take you on a quick little journey through the through the exhibition so

52:03

you can see what we were doing i was very fortunate and i’m extremely honored to have as a friend and

52:10

colleague um a composer and sound artist small scott smallwood who’s my collaborator on

52:16

macromerial and he’s wonderful he’s wonderful i learned so much about about

52:22

sound and about about sound art from him and continue to do so uh but scott created

52:30

two sound works for this exhibition and we also had a live performance of a score that he wrote um

52:37

here in edmonton and it was also performed initially in nova scotia in 2017.

52:45

so i’m just gonna i’m gonna do that crazy share your screen again thing here we go

52:53

yes i’m going to allow you to share my screen and here we go back off into infinity

53:00

and beyond all right awesome i’ll just pop my video

53:05

off so there’s a little bit more room on the screen there for if sydney okay this will just this will

53:11

this uh runs a couple of minutes so i’ll just i’ll just show this

55:47

okay thank you for sharing that that was awesome oh you’re very welcome thank you

55:54

thank you for watching absolutely well and it was so nice to see

56:00

uh to see that exhibit at snap they did such a wonderful job uh dealing with all of the covid

56:06

restrictions and everything and they were just they went above and beyond it they were so

56:11

great yeah so great so several of the works that you see in that show

56:17

um the the large prints and the small work um have are are on their way to

56:24

uh some have been dropped off but they’re on their on their weight art rental and sales so um i will just go quickly through

56:32

let’s just go quickly through a few of the uh they just just scroll through the images

56:38

so that folks can see them a little more closely because it’s hard to uh

56:46

um but it was a this was a a wonderful project and again it started with a resume

56:52

it was um uh 2016 and 2017 scott and i were out on in paris bro

56:59

nova scotia working on the bay of fundy this uh this work has

57:04

its roots in uh an exploration of the world’s highest tides and

57:10

what that means and the history of shipbuilding on the shore and the history of fishing but also

57:17

[Music] the history of um this is also the history of magma

57:22

right the is is big ma traditional land traditional

57:28

territory and there’s a lot of legends and stories particularly glooscap legends around

57:36

um the bay of fundy and the formation of the bay of fundy and and different things that happened there

57:42

so it was a way of weaving in all of those histories

57:47

in making this work and i felt very strongly in going back into

57:53

this work for 29 that i needed to acknowledge um

58:01

the mi’kmaq heritage in the area and so although it’s difficult to see in some of the is in

58:07

some of these shots in on the buoys that you saw in the windows

58:12

and on in the flags in the windows and also on one of the boats um

58:18

the the ribs of the big boat that were on the floor on the inside um are all uh

58:27

there’s a whole bunch of references to um the migmaw places

58:33

on that shore the the some of the kluska legends and the way

58:39

they intersect with our current understanding yeah from a white western

58:46

perspective right of the landscape and the bay and why the bay does what it does so

58:54

that’s the ongoing journey for me yeah so yeah wonderful

59:01

and we have a couple minutes left so if folks want to ask sydney any questions now is

59:06

your time um i have a question for you sydney okay how did you get those pieces a boat

59:15

back to edmonton alberta well you know i feel like there’s a fun

59:21

and first the first challenge was was actually scrounging them and they were scrounged off beaches yeah

59:29

uh offshore lines abandoned boats uh the big boat uh that big blue boat stem and the big

59:36

long ribs um a friend and i actually took apart a derelict boat with a chainsaw

59:44

and um and a pry bar and brought it back to the studio that i had for the residency

59:50

the short story is that we exhibited the work and um uh in nova scotia

59:58

at maina station where we had the residency and then i packed it all up uh and boxed it all

1:00:05

up and shipped it back on

1:00:10

with a commercial shipper back to edmonton and stored it and then brought it out

1:00:15

again and started reworking with all of that um the buoys were sent

1:00:21

in large tubs rubbermaid tubs by canada post yeah um

1:00:29

and then i i brought them back and uh and did the collage collage work here

1:00:35

it must be noted too that those those boys uh a great many of them were gathered by hand off the beaches

1:00:43

that’s garbage right wow right so there’s a lot of stuff

1:00:49

yeah that comes into play with this work it’s about how we understand our

1:00:55

relationship to the sea how we understand our relationship to that that bay

1:01:00

the life in it and how how it can both sustain us

1:01:08

and how we can damage it you know i mean there’s there are you

1:01:14

know whales and and dolphins and fish that get trapped in this stuff and it’s yeah

1:01:22

so it’s kind of a coming full circle back to the the found object stuff that i was doing

1:01:29

when i first started my full-time practice but with a slightly different intentionality yeah it’s still about

1:01:36

those gaps the gaps in the story also about gaps and understanding our impact on the planet and and

1:01:45

how we need to care for our place in the world

1:01:52

and the world in general and our relationships it’s it’s about having a conversation with each other and and

1:02:00

and with the planet i think yeah that’s probably the shortest way i could describe why i work yeah absolutely

1:02:10

we have some wonderful messages in the chat from some folks who just absolutely

1:02:15

enjoyed all of your exhibits and thank you so much everyone for for letting us know that’s so sweet we

1:02:22

really appreciate that thank you so much

1:02:29

yeah it is i completely agree with you anna it is very interesting to hear um the insights

1:02:36

of of sydney and uh and seeing the exhibit first hand at snap was wonderful

1:02:43

and we actually got to have a little bit of a tour with her and it was so interesting

1:02:48

to hear all the nuances and to hear from her directly um so yeah i’m so glad that we got to

1:02:56

have you here with us tonight sydney i really appreciate it oh well thank you very much it was lovely to be here absolutely

1:03:02

thank you all so much um if you have any questions about the artwork that we have at our rental

1:03:08

and sales of sydney’s i would be happy to answer uh like we mentioned earlier these uh

1:03:14

these pieces here have just arrived um and they will be a part of our bring at home event

1:03:20

this year so if you want to see those in person please pop by the gallery um and these ones here

1:03:28

just a second almost there these ones are pending a sale um

1:03:35

which is very exciting because they just arrived that’s amazing um so if uh if you want to

1:03:42

snatch up some of cindy’s work i get it while it’s it’s still here and available well thank

1:03:49

you thank you very much sarah yeah also if i mean i i realize i have

1:03:55

blathered on tremendously long and i apologize for that for for those of you who needed to

1:04:01

to go or are getting bored stiff um but if you do actually have questions

1:04:07

that you want to ask me about my practice or about my work anything like that uh if you go to my website uh there is a

1:04:15

contact form and i do actually reply to my messages um so feel free uh feel free to get in

1:04:22

touch i enjoy part of part of why i do what i do is is to connect with people so

1:04:30

um it the door is always open to to conversation yeah absolutely thank you again so much

1:04:38

sydney for for joining us this evening and thank you all so much for attending we really appreciate it

1:04:44

and uh we wish you all the very best thank you and thank you to everybody for

1:04:49

coming tonight thanks so much sarah thanks to the aga night everyone

1:04:55

good night

No results found