Decades ago, autodidact/ bloody-minded optimist kerry rawlinson gravitated from sunny Zambian skies to solid Canadian soil. Now she stalks Literature & Art’s Muses around the Okanagan Valley, still barefoot, forgetting to eat. Some contest achievements: Winner, Edinburgh International Flash Fiction Award; Hon. Mention, Fish Poetry Prize; CAGO Online Gallery. Newer pieces in Foreign Literature,  Synchronized Chaos, Across The Margin, Painted Bride, Tupelo Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Pedestal, Boned, Arc Poetry, amongst others. Visit tumblr; Tweet @kerryrawli

ARTIST STATEMENT

My artistic practice concerns a critical examination of human relationships with the natural world and how ecosystems are changing in the anthropocene. I spend time researching ecosystems and the connections within them, particularly via site visits and consultation with scientists and lay experts. My multidisciplinary practice involves collecting materials following ethical foraging practices (plants,
feathers, bones, fungi and lichen specimens, for example) from natural environments, or accessing museum collections for use as raw material in making work, and as reference material.
 
These large-scale still life images are produced using a high-resolution scanner as my camera: specimens collected during site visits are arranged on the glass, in groupings that serve to illustrate connections in Canadian ecosystems that may not be immediately apparent to a casual observer. The images are elegiac, dark, mourning, representing not contemporary specimens but rather, recontextualized, some last remaining pieces of a fragmented world, floating in the void.

​The concepts that I seek to explore with my work – encouraging a sense of wonder, interest, and respectful stewardship with regards to the natural environment – are becoming more and more relevant. It is with increasing unease that I observe developments in human behavior at home and abroad, at the individual and institutional level, that impact negatively on the continued functioning of the complex ecosystems that we humans are part of. I feel that one of my roles as an artist is to interpret events around me and draw attention to matters of political, social, and environmental importance, and so my artistic practice aims to cultivate a deep attention to the details and intricacies of natural ecosystems, and to examine human relationships with the natural world. My pieces attempt to frame the work of plants and animals in terms that are easier for humans to understand, and potentially empathize or identify with. I hope to inspire a sense of wonder or fascination, and encourage the viewer to consider the energy and resources that go into the constant cycle of building and decay in complex environments and ecosystems.

Julya Hajnoczky was born in Calgary and raised by hippie parents, surrounded by unruly houseplants, bookishness and art supplies, with CBC radio playing softly, constantly, in the background. It was inevitable, then, that she would grow up to be an artist. She holds a BA in French from the University of Calgary and a BDes in photography from the Alberta College of Art + Design. Her multidisciplinary practice includes digital and analog photography, fibre art, and book and paper sculpture, and seeks to ask questions and inspire curiosity about the complex relationships between humans and the natural world. Her most recent adventures, supported by grants from the Calgary Arts Development Authority and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, involved building a mobile natural history collection laboratory (a combination tiny camper and workspace, the Al Fresco Science Machine), and exploring the many ecosystems of Western
Canada, from Alberta’s Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, to the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve in BC and Wood Buffalo National Park, NWT. If she's not in her home studio working on something tiny, she's out in the forest working on something big. See more of Julya’s work at obscura-lucida.com

Dear Tree, From Shadow
Performative Sculpture

Bijarim-ro in Jeju Island is a two-lane road connecting two nearby towns, Songdang and Gyorae. With justifications such as high traffic for tourists using this road and the convenience of transportation for the residents of Songdang, the provincial government of Jeju unilaterally pushed for the “Bijarim Road Expansion Project” in 2018. Since then, 1,000 cedar trees had been clear-cut around Bijarim-ro.

Upon hearing the news, a small group of people came out to protect the forest. Sometimes with the support of the residents, other times with the extra help from the creatures living in Bijarim-ro forest, they’ve been protecting the forest for the last three years.

I also heard the news about Bijarim-ro, but I couldn’t run out to the forest like them. Perhaps because of their sound of resistance occupying a small corner of my heart, at some point, without thinking, I was out making work with stones by rolling them around in the Bijarim cedar forest. While working there, I met the “Bijarim-ro Cedar Forest Keepers” and was invited to participate in an art event that they organized.

I send this video letter to a tree once faced the light, and to a tree facing the light right now.  

제주도 ‘비자림로’는 ‘송당’과 ‘교래’를 잇는 2차선 도로이다. 이 도로를 사용하는 관광객 교통 수요 증가와 ‘송당’ 주민들의 교통 편의를 명분으로, 제주도 도정道政은 2018년 ‘비자림로 확장공사’를 일방적으로 밀어붙였다. 결국 ‘비자림로’ 주변 삼나무 1000여 그루가 벌목되었다.

이 소식을 들은 제주 시민들은 현장으로 뛰어나와 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’을 지키기 위한 저항운동을 시작하였다. 때로는 시민들의 호응을 받으며, 때로는 비자림로에 사는 뭇 생명들의 힘을 빌어 3년 간 이곳을 지키고 있다.

나 또한 비자림로의 소식을 들었지만, 그들처럼 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’으로 달려가진 못했다. 내 마음 한 켠을 차지하고 있던 그들의 함성 때문 이었을까? 언제 부턴가 나는 작업을 한답시고 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’에서 돌멩이를 굴리고 있었다. 그러던 중 ‘비자림로 삼나무 숲’ 지킴이들이 진행하는 문화행사에 참여하게 되었다.

한 때 빛을 향했던 나무에게, 그리고 지금 빛을 향하고 있는 나무에게 이 영상편지를 보낸다.

고승욱/ Koh, Seung Wook

I was born and raised in Jeju Island.
For 20 years, I lived in Seoul, building my art career.
Even though I’ve been back in Jeju for over 10 years,
I’m still learning about the island and
I surprise myself for my ignorance of Jeju. 

제주도에서 나고 자랐다.
20년간 서울에서 미술활동을 했고
제주 내려온지 10년이 지나고 있다.
늦깍기 제주공부에 매달리면서
제주에 대한 자신의 무지함에 새삼 놀라고 있다.

Plastic Wind
2019.12.11.
판교낙생대공원 / at the Pangyo Paradise Park, Seoul, Korea
두터운 잎 Project/ part of Thick Leaf Project

As time goes as humans love the city forest, the forest loses herself and morphs with our habit. Her power and beauty are destroyed by our impatient and insignificant acts. We think the forest will remain the same, but she loses her language every time we walk through her path. The beautiful path for us is a plastic wind for her.  

- How do we express love?


사람이 도심의 숲을 사랑하는 시간이 흐를수록 작은 숲은 자신을 잃고 사람에 맞춰 변해간다. 숲은 그 자체로 힘이 있고 아름답지만, 사람이 만든 성급하고 작은 사건들에 무너져버린다. 숲은 계속 그대로일 거라고 생각하지만, 사람들이 한발자국 걸을 때마다 숲은 빠르게 숲의 언어를 잃어간다. 사람의 아름다운 산책길이 숲에게는 플라스틱 바람인 걸 모른다.

-사랑의 표현은 어떻게 해야 하나

CHOE Rayun is a visual artist who works closely with elements from everyday and nature. She is an active member of Mullae Art Village in Seoul. Site-specificity of Mullae informs her work and directs her attention to nature, human and urban, and their relationship to each other.  With her thought provoking works, she offers a moment to share and an opportunity to contemplate. She works in diverse mediums such as painting, drawing, sculpture, video and performance.

https://blog.naver.com/canero

Preface

I am from Nunatsiavut (in Labrador). We Inuit have always been known as “Sikumiut; People of the Sea”, meaning that we lived and survived by the sea ice as a means for subsistence, travel, traditional cultural practices (as well as contemporary). In the four Inuit Regions Nunatsiavut (in Labrador), Nunavik (in Arctic Quebec), Nunavut and Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the Western Arctic, we see the most effects of ice loss due to climate change.

Each year it takes longer for ice to form and as a result, hunter and trappers and community members are not able to go out on the ice or land, leading to less food for both hunter and community. Our Ice is melting and we are all at fault (humanity). We have no one else to blame but us and humans are contributing to loss of practices, changes in animal migration, traditions, community well-being, less time on the land and less interaction with the environment.

As an Inuk living in Ottawa, I ask myself, do people really understand the potential and real risk of climate change? How is it affecting our regions, our lives and our environment. Do we understand the consequences and effects associated with melting snow and ice; natural disasters, time, awareness, funding and polices or lack of them. Who is talking about it, who is concerned about it, and what are we going to do as a result of it? The images selected from my Ice Works is an attempt to bring awareness to and of climate change and global warming from an urban Inuk artist’s perspective.


Below are selected images from De-Iced photo series, on-going project

** Two of the photographs from the series, Policy Gone Awry and After the Melt, are part of the upcoming group exhibition  Qautamaat | Every day / everyday at the Art Gallery of Guelph

Barry Pottle is an Inuk artist from Nunatsiavut in Labrador (Rigolet), now living in Ottawa, Ontario. He has worked with the Indigenous arts community for many years particularly in the city of Ottawa. Barry has always been interested in photography as a medium of artistic expression and as a way of exploring the world around him. Living in Ottawa, which has the largest urban population of Inuit outside the North, Barry has been able to stay connected to the greater Inuit community.

Through the camera’s len, Barry showcases the uniqueness of this community. Whether it is at a cultural gathering, family outings or the solitude of nature that photography allows, he captures the essence of Inuit life in Ottawa. From a regional perspective, living in the Nation’s Capital allows him to travel throughout the valley and beyond to explore and photograph people, places and events.

He believes that the concept of Urban Inuit is relatively new and for the most part unexplored (compared to other Urban Indigenous groups in Canada) so as an artist, he seeks to articulate this. “The camera,” he shares, “allows me to explore connection and continuity with my heritage and culture especially with regards to the contemporary reality of being an Urban Inuk.”

Barry’s photos have been published in a variety of magazines (Makivik Magazine, Inuktitut Magazine, Inuit Art Quarterly) and he has also contributed images to a number of community initiatives.

https://barrypottle.com/