Pandemic Gardens
Resilience Through Nature
Organized by Ron Benner and Rachel MacGillivary
with the assistance of Jamelie Hassan, Olivia Mossuto, and JoAnna Weil
When the world went into lockdown in March 2020, so did my creative brain. I hit a wall in my studio practice that was so thick and heavy I couldn’t even pick up my materials, and nothing I had been making felt important anymore. The only place I came alive was in my garden. Planting gave me purpose, seeds shooting up gave me hope, pulling weeds and clearing land helped me step outside of my worries. We spent five months in isolation with our toddler son, and most of that time was spent together, planning and tending our gardens—it’s how we survived the separation, anxiety, and pressure. It’s the thing that got us through, and we’re not the only ones. Now, it’s time to share our gardens. Whether your experience was painting fantasy gardens while in lockdown, visiting public green spaces, taking care of a beloved house plant, containers on your balcony, or working in your own garden—tending vegetables, flowers, or weeds—we want to share your experience. Let’s recognize and acknowledge these connections with the natural world.
Rachel A. MacGillivray, July 28, 2021
Rachel A. MacGillivray, July 28, 2021
I am reminded of an exhibition that Jamelie and I did in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2013 about the Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, titled
The World Is a Garden Whose Walls Are the State. The title was inspired by a quote from Ibn Khaldun's The Muqaddimah (1377 AD), which was one of the first universal histories of the world. Now, the world is a garden whose walls are the pandemic and the state.
Ron Benner, July 28, 2021
The World Is a Garden Whose Walls Are the State. The title was inspired by a quote from Ibn Khaldun's The Muqaddimah (1377 AD), which was one of the first universal histories of the world. Now, the world is a garden whose walls are the pandemic and the state.
Ron Benner, July 28, 2021
Banner photo credit: Rachel A. MacGillivray, 2021
INTRODUCTION
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Ron Benner, Co-founder and Curatorial Advisor of the
Embassy Cultural House, London, Ontario November 1, 2021 The idea for the online exhibition Pandemic Gardens originated from a conversation between Tariq Hassan Gordon and myself in July 2021. I had been describing to Tariq an email correspondence I was having with the artist Rachel MacGillivray. Rachel and I had been introduced through a mentorship program initiated by the Connexion Artist-Run Centre, Fredericton, New Brunswick, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. The artist-run centre had approached me to be involved in this mentorship because of my work involving photographic/garden installations. In her emails, Rachel described how the pandemic had affected her practice. Gardening with her young son, Duncan, had become her primary way of being creative. As is usual with Tariq, I could see his mind working—leading to another Embassy Cultural House (ECH) project! After talking with Rachel, the ECH launched an open-call/invitational for Pandemic Gardens: Resilience Through Nature. The mentor–mentee relationship shifted into a collaboration. Rachel and I became co-organizers of the exhibition with the assistance of the ECH team. The responses were not limited to artists. An invitation was extended to Justine Richardson, Director of The Arboretum, University of Guelph, Guelph Ontario. Justine had started her job a month before the pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020. She invited Richelle Forsey to contribute photographs of The Arboretum during the pandemic to accompany her text. Over the past year, I have continued to have a Zoom dialogue with Rachel that has provided both of us with positive ways of working through the Covid-19 pandemic. We are now producing a billboard of images from the exhibition, to be installed with a garden planted by children, June 2022, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, at the Fredericton Botanic Garden. A printed ECH publication will also accompany this project in August 2022. |
Rachel MacGillivray, Community Contributor of the Embassy Cultural House, Fredericton, New Brunswick
November 1, 2021 Prior to the pandemic, I was primarily a textile artist. In March 2020, the province of New Brunswick shut down and so did I. Creatively, everything went black for me. I could not go into the studio. My previous work ceased to matter. A wall existed across my studio door. In April, with my son, Duncan, I started to plant seeds indoors for greens. As the snow melted, we began clearing thistles and grasses to turn overgrown scrub back into garden spaces. Duncan would build “earthworm houses." Taking care of him, and taking care of our garden together, was where I put all of my energy. It wasn't until a friend suggested that I apply to the Connexion Artist-Run Centre's Isolation Projects that I began to consider my gardening anything more than “just gardening." In April 2021, I applied to Connexion ARC's mentoring program. Self-conscious but bolstered by what I had done and learned the year before, and eager to continue having my ideas of artistic practice and garden knowledge expanded, I was introduced to Ron Benner. Through this project I was asked to join the Embassy Cultural House. This experience has been so much more than a mentorship. At the ECH, I have found a diverse community committed to supporting one another and building something beautiful together. Coming from a small farming area, I grew up with a community like this, one where helping each other and working towards common goals was the natural way of working. This is something that has been disappearing from our societies. We live in a time of competition and an emphasis on the individual. Pandemic Gardens gives voice to an alternative approach to living in this world. 
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Pandemic Gardens: Exhibition Video
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Pandemic Gardens: Online Celebration
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CONTRIBUTORS
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JESSIE AMERY
JANICE ANDREAE / JANE BUYERS RON BENNER ANTHEA BLACK CAROLE CONDE / KARL BEVERIDGE STEPHEN CRUISE PATRICIA DEADMAN HOLLY ENGLISH MARNIE FLEMING MIREYA FOLCH-SERRA RICHELLE FORSEY FATIMA GARZAN REBECCA GIMMI JAMELIE HASSAN FERN HELFAND LISA HIRMER SF HO |
LORRAINE JOHNSON
MARTYN JUDSON IRABOTY KAZI CHRISTINA KINGSBURY YAM LAU MICHELLE CORRINE LIU MIRIAM LOVE MARTHA MACGILLIVRAY RACHEL ANNE MACGILLIVRAY JOSH MAZZA ASHAR MOBEEN CATHERINE MORRISEY OLIVIA MOSSUTO KIM NEUDORF JUSTINE RICHARDSON JENNIFER RUDDER JUDITH RODGER JAYCE SALLOUM ROLAND SCHUBERT |
SANDRA SEMCHUK
GEORDIE SHEPHERD CAROLYN SIMMONS GABRIELLA SOLTI VERA TAMARI JEFF THOMAS LARRY TOWELL DOT TUER / ALBERTO GOMEZ ZAINUB VERJEE CATHERINE VILLAR JOANNA WEIL STEPHANIE WHITE RYAN WHYTE JADE WILLIAMSON WINSOM WINSOM BH YAEL |
THE ARBORETUM at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario
Text by Justine Richardson and Photos by Richelle Forsey
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The meaning of The Arboretum is made and remade by the many people who use and experience its space. During the pandemic, The Arboretum’s story and meaning expanded as it became one of the few places where people were allowed to be. The restrictions forced us to see the world anew. To wonder how we took for granted the mere fact of being together. To look more closely at the small, close, local world around us. Perhaps to experience awe in that looking. And so, during a time of deep concern and isolation, The Arboretum offered many an opportunity to be, and to see, and to see each other—along the trails and amidst the gardens, wetlands, and formal collections that comprise this space.
Richelle Forsey’s photographs of The Arboretum during the pandemic convey new visions of familiar ground, and also share glimpses of people—being, walking, looking, making space for one another--in public, in greenspace, in public greenspace. The challenges of the pandemic differed for each of us. Though we all shared (and continue to share) a common concern for our health, so many suffered directly from illness and tragic losses and the injustice of uneven impacts. Given these experiences, I saw The Arboretum offer to many people the central qualities of a good life: togetherness, diversity, awe of the natural world, calmness, and perspective on what it means to be here. The pandemic challenged me and my family in ways that were deeply personal. For myself, the work needed to keep The Arboretum safely open during the pandemic became even more meaningful. I saw the plants and the animals—the living beings of The Arboretum—comforting people who were comforting each other. During this time, I believed this comfort of conserved greenspace was part of the promise for better times to come. I still believe that; I’m dedicated to that meaning. |
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Justine Richardson is Director of The Arboretum, a 400-acre, internationally accredited living laboratory at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario. She brings a life-long learning and storytelling approach to leadership in cultural spaces. For the past twenty-two years, she has worked in interdisciplinary university environments. Justine has a background in documentary filmmaking and multimedia production. She trained at Appalshop, the community-based media arts centre in the Appalachian mountains of Whitesburg, Kentucky, where she was born. There, she directed Girls’ Hoops, an award-winning history of girls’ high-school basketball, and was a videographer for Shelter, Morristown in the Air and Sun, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, and The Ralph Stanley Story. For many years, she worked on developing and managing multi-partner humanities research projects at Matrix: The Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences at Michigan State University, Lansing, MI, USA.
Richelle Forsey is an artist, urban explorer, and photographer. She is interested in the results of aleatory creative processes and making objects, experimental films, and images for slow looking, to spark imagination, and to make sense of the contemporary world. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the USA, and internationally as well as collaboratively in the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival and Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto. She is a founding member of the photography collective TLR Club, a member of Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, and the graphic artist for the indie experimental music label Aural Tethers. Richelle resides in Guelph, Ontario, where she is the photography department technician at the University of Guelph. Please visit her website to learn more.
JESSIE AMERY
London, ON
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Anthurium Bookmark is hand-embroidered with cotton and silk threads on inkjet-printed cotton canvas. This embroidery is an interpretation of a bookmark published in 2017 by the McIntosh Gallery based upon a detail of Jamelie Hassan’s work Wall with Door, 1977. The bookmark was published for the website A Driving Force: Women of London, Ontario, Visual Arts Community, 1867 to the Present as part of the Canada 150 Celebrations.
The pandemic and its restrictions have caused feelings of isolation for many of us. My embroidery and textile work has been an ongoing activity in my life. During the pandemic, I have been able to continue my work and be inspired by the online community workshops and presentations offered by the Embroidery Guild. The gardens that surround us, the forests and wooded areas that we stroll through, or the paths along the river that wind through the city are all part of our strategy to not only escape isolation but provide us with endless opportunities for us to feel healthy and strengthen our spirits. Jessie Amery is a textile artist and active member of the Canadian Embroiderers' Guild of London, Ontario, since 1996. She has been a contributor to the Embassy Cultural House's online exhibitions since 2020. Amery has contributed widely to social justice and immigrant concerns in the London community. Click to view Jessie Amery's ECH Contributor Page |
Anthurium Bookmark, 2017/2021
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JANICE ANDREAE / JANE BUYERS
Toronto, ON
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Jane's Garden
In the early 1980s, visual artist Jane Buyers developed a garden in the backyard of her worker’s cottage on Manning Avenue north of Queen Street, an inner-city community in Toronto where most green spaces were filled in with cement patches and concrete except for frameworks of common plumbing pipes that held clusters of grapes in the late summer until ripe and ready for winemaking in early autumn. It had always been Jane’s plan to put in a garden. The idea had percolated in her mind from the moment that she bought the house. Both her parents had been great gardeners and, she said, “their thinking was that the prime reason to buy a house was so that you could have a garden.” Unfortunately, nearly a quarter of the backyard had been covered with concrete, badly done. However, once Jane began planning, there was no looking back. The task of excavating the garden was daunting, although after a few good bashes, the concrete crumbled to smallish bits. A cement wall about a foot and a half high ran down each side of the yard. For Jane, the wall was even harder than the concrete paving to knock down and haul away. The worst part of the project was lugging the concrete bits through her home, necessary because the house was attached on both sides with no back exit. As the excavation continued, friends dropped by to help. Much of the hard physical labour was done by Eugene Mazzei, who also assisted in designing the planting. The garden was a space constructed to comfort and sustain the body, mind, and soul, or as curator Zachari Logan says, “a location of aesthetic creativity, expressing a human desire to control impulses that are uncanny, emotive responses to an environment.” In this way, Jane changed a space that appeared to be formidable into one that held the possibility of transformation. Postscript Jane writes that she has a print of the way the garden looked when she first moved in showing the wooden structure at the back end (right image): What is interesting about the photos is that they are all taken from the same vantage point from the porch off the kitchen, looking down and west towards the back of the garden. The shot of the way the garden looked when I first moved in shows the wooden structure at the back end. I had forgotten about that. I think it may have been a rabbit hutch. I would feel more comfortable with some sense of acknowledging that the difference between my plans for my backyard garden and the way my neighbours saw their outdoor areas was one of perspective. My garden vision was a typical european-based idea of a pleasure garden—flowers with colour, texture, perfume, their only purpose to be beautiful. My neighbours' backyards were based on an agrarian, agricultural tradition of planting useful crops such as tomatoes to be eaten and grapes to be made into wine. (From an email conversation with Jane on July 14, 2022) It is also certainly true that Jane's garden held the promise of a continuing change of bloom and foliage, fragrance and nectar, shadow, and shelter that, in turn, provided a potential habitat to birds, small animals, and insects, especially bees and butterflies. |
Polaroid image of Jane's garden, 1988
Jane's garden her first summer, 1982
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Jane's garden photographed from the perspective of the porch off the kitchen, looking down and west
towards the back of the garden, 1985
Jane Buyers is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Waterloo and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Her work includes sculpture, drawing, printmaking and commissioned public works. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and internationally. Jane is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art inToronto.
RON BENNER
London, ON
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Remains in Association with Cultural Deposits: 10,000 Years Before Present Era, 2021, was the first photographic/garden installation I was able to complete since the start of the pandemic. It was installed at The Arboretum (Harrison House), University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, as part of my artist-in-residence with the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph.
The parameters of this work kept changing as tragic events unfolded during the pandemic. Specifically, I am talking about the revelation of unmarked graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of the former residential schools in Kamloops and Cowessess First Nation, British Columbia. A formative article by Zena Olijynk was published in Canadian Lawyer (July 29, 2021: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/practice-areas/indigenous/reality-of-residential-schools-was-always-there-for-us-to-see-cindy-blackstock/358528), in which Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, outlined the reality of residential schools within the continuing legal confrontation with the government of Canada. The garden consists of plants native to the Americas, including tomatoes, chili peppers, maize, tobacco, marigolds, petunias, morning glories, canna lilies, and scarlet runner beans, with cultural deposits of ceramic, glass, and metal sherds placed on top of the soil. The photographic mural along the top half presents dried seeds and grains native to the Americas. On the bottom half are First Nations cultural deposits from 10,000 years Before Present Era to the present and European cultural deposits from 450 years Before Present Era to the present. Intermixed with the artifacts are fresh fruits and vegetables native to the Americas, including papayas, avocados, guavas, passion fruit, potatoes, tomatoes, maize, chili peppers, canna rhizomes and green beans. Six Globe and Mail articles relating to the unmarked children's graves, published between May 29 and June 25, are included. They act as a media timeline of the working process of this installation, which was erected and planted in early July 2021. |
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Remains in Association with Cultural Deposits: 10,000 Years Before Present Era, 2021, mixed-media photographic/garden installation
Photo credit: (right) Julie René De Cotret; (bottom left) Roland Schubert
Click to view Ron Benner's ECH Contributor Page
Photo credit: (right) Julie René De Cotret; (bottom left) Roland Schubert
Click to view Ron Benner's ECH Contributor Page
ANTHEA BLACK
Oakland, USA
After my Dad died we received a lot of flowers. I felt like I became a professional flower arranger. I would carefully cut the stems and replace the water, every few days going around the house and gathering, then redistributing, the refreshed vases, looking at all the clippings and piles of dead flowers on the counter—burdensome, yet with a dutiful commitment to their beauty.
During my Mum’s last year of life, she was very sick. Some flowers we received were beautiful but many arrived already sort of bedraggled, a waste. It eventually grew depressing to keep trying to revive the wilted grocery bouquets. When she began actively dying in May, we didn’t realize how many tulips she had planted in her garden the autumn before. As they came up, we brought them to her bedroom, one or two at a time. I saw these in a completely different way. Three, then eight, nine, ten vases. Each with individual blooms. Not stuffed into a uniform arrangement, they had a life of their own that developed character over days and even weeks. When grown from unique bulbs, each tulip was all the more fascinating. But like a Dutch still-life, darkness was closing in around us. She slipped constantly into dreams, always returning to our family’s bright but long-gone farm garden in Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan. The world shrank to the size of just one room. Outside, the tulips kept growing. She had grown a garden of companions for this final chapter of life.
After her departure, the pandemic continued on, and I sank further into the everyday work of simply maintaining home. May was over, and through June, the tulips eventually let go on their own too. With grief, my daily compost piles, which included cut flowers, turned to thoughts of death and decomposition. I took more interest in compost; the earliest known evidence of farmers composting is more than 12,000 years old. Making these photographs has become a reminder of a bigger and longer ecological timespan, and that cycles of daily life also include our garbage.
During my Mum’s last year of life, she was very sick. Some flowers we received were beautiful but many arrived already sort of bedraggled, a waste. It eventually grew depressing to keep trying to revive the wilted grocery bouquets. When she began actively dying in May, we didn’t realize how many tulips she had planted in her garden the autumn before. As they came up, we brought them to her bedroom, one or two at a time. I saw these in a completely different way. Three, then eight, nine, ten vases. Each with individual blooms. Not stuffed into a uniform arrangement, they had a life of their own that developed character over days and even weeks. When grown from unique bulbs, each tulip was all the more fascinating. But like a Dutch still-life, darkness was closing in around us. She slipped constantly into dreams, always returning to our family’s bright but long-gone farm garden in Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan. The world shrank to the size of just one room. Outside, the tulips kept growing. She had grown a garden of companions for this final chapter of life.
After her departure, the pandemic continued on, and I sank further into the everyday work of simply maintaining home. May was over, and through June, the tulips eventually let go on their own too. With grief, my daily compost piles, which included cut flowers, turned to thoughts of death and decomposition. I took more interest in compost; the earliest known evidence of farmers composting is more than 12,000 years old. Making these photographs has become a reminder of a bigger and longer ecological timespan, and that cycles of daily life also include our garbage.
Vanitas / Green Garbage: forgotten fennel, 01.14.2022
Vanitas / Green Garbage: Ranunculus on my Mum's birthday, 10.30.2021
Vanitas / Green Garbage: the cheap tulips, 11.22.2021
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Vanitas / Green Garbage: mourning shell from the birthplace of Cato's Father, 11.01.2021
Vanitas / Green Garbage: recent orchid, 11.25.2021
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Anthea Black is a Canadian artist currently based in Oakland, USA. Black’s recent work includes artist-publishing projects The HIV Howler: Transmitting Art and Activism newspaper, Handbook: Supporting Queer and Trans Students in Art and Design Education, reprinting the UNESCO Status of the Artist Archive, 1980–2020 letterpress artist-book, and The New Politics of the Handmade: Craft, Art and Design, an edited collection of writings on critical craft theory from Bloomsbury Visual Culture Editions, 2020.
CAROLE CONDÉ / KARL BEVERIDGE
Toronto, ON
Gardens, as such, are not a topic I would usually undertake. But wildfires were in the news. Could my garden catch on fire? Many gardens have perished: Lytton, BC, Fort McMurray, Marysville, Quito, Dhaka, California, Greece, Siberia, and endlessly on.
But a garden on fire, in itself, could simply mean a BBQ, or some such, got out of control. I needed to incorporate the larger cause, the human virus that is consuming all of nature: burnt forests, vanished species, flooded habitats, and the release of a pandemic now in competition with and killing us. The humans could be a gardener, myself, watering the garden, and a male suit (developer, investor, conqueror, capitalist) pouring gasoline on the fire. The hopeful and the virus.
The garden through my back window has three frames: allusions to medieval altar pieces? The gardener is in the left window. The suit (a minotaur) in the middle. A snake and a tree in the right window: The Garden of Eden burning? The table, quickly abandoned, leaving empty dishes, an imported grapefruit the colour of the fire, a mask, headlines, and a dog wondering what he signed up to.
We all need to become gardeners. To root out the virus of capital. To grow for each other. To save Mother Earth.
But a garden on fire, in itself, could simply mean a BBQ, or some such, got out of control. I needed to incorporate the larger cause, the human virus that is consuming all of nature: burnt forests, vanished species, flooded habitats, and the release of a pandemic now in competition with and killing us. The humans could be a gardener, myself, watering the garden, and a male suit (developer, investor, conqueror, capitalist) pouring gasoline on the fire. The hopeful and the virus.
The garden through my back window has three frames: allusions to medieval altar pieces? The gardener is in the left window. The suit (a minotaur) in the middle. A snake and a tree in the right window: The Garden of Eden burning? The table, quickly abandoned, leaving empty dishes, an imported grapefruit the colour of the fire, a mask, headlines, and a dog wondering what he signed up to.
We all need to become gardeners. To root out the virus of capital. To grow for each other. To save Mother Earth.
STEPHEN CRUISE
Toronto, ON
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A series of bird’s-eye views of
a number of created paths through the backyard garden. Done on hands and knees in the summer of 2021 and upon completion entitled them ‘covidWay(s)’. One path initiated another then another. A few feet moved to many. Stone from three Winter Garden (RAWF) installations (1995 1997 2000) found themselves as one after years of being apart throughout the garden. And now with a record of one’s time they became placed with no rhyme or reason save for their memories. The lettered ones originated from the last install entitled Dune 2000 – 3 fishes of sand with a river rock base of the word ‘water’ in 30 languages each with their own font. |
Placement within the garden was
one at a time and only after its finding of position. Eye to hand being selection of a stone to be the stone. Finding a flow of embrace—each stone becoming their collective mosaic. Now they reside as school… together as never before now. This time of times allowed space to enter for paths to be discovered within ourselves. An aloneness with wonder if sum is well. |
as we put away a bowl of covidWay, 2021
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PATRICIA DEADMAN
Woodstock, ON
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The evolution of the history of gardens informs current works that question exoticism, entitlement, and authority, among other issues. In my earlier work, the wrapped tree series evolved from questions of identity and a shared landscape and history. What is perceived is not necessarily what we think. Depending on who is telling the story, displacement, ownership, and privilege become topics of discussion. Individual and community experiences inform the narrative: what lies beyond the surface?
In this body of work, the trees are wrapped in burlap for their protection from the elements. Historically, blankets contaminated with small pox given to Indigenous communities had devasting effects. In the current pandemic times, the image Drive Thru metaphorically resonates as indoor dining has become an arduous task once taken for granted. The series, The Journey Thru New Hamburg, 1995, recalls the long winter treks across a windswept landscape. Inspired by historical photographs, ledger drawings, and paintings, the matter of survival and resiliency become apparent as individual and community experiences adapt once again for the next generation. |
Drive Thru, 1995
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The Journey Thru New Hamburg, 1995
Patricia Deadman is a lens-based visual artist, writer, and curator at the Woodland Cultural Centre. She obtained a fine arts diploma from Fanshawe College and a BFA in visual arts from the University of Windsor. She has participated in numerous artist residencies, including Banff, Alberta; Paris, France; Merida and Oaxaca, Mexico. She has exhibited since the 1980s, most recently in Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 3, Contemporary Native North American Art from the Northeast and Southeast, Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York (2012–15), and Resilience National Billboard Exhibition, Mentoring Artists for Women's Art (MAWA), Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her works are in numerous public and private collections.
HOLLY ENGLISH
Gloucestershire, UK
Gloucestershire, UK
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My studio is located in the back room of an old Brunel goods shed in the train station car park in Stroud, South West England. Aside from performances in the main building, I am the only person who ever works here, so the pandemic didn’t especially deprive me, but there were fewer people using the car park, and that gave me a sense of stewardship over the concrete.
There is a patch of edgeland and a decommissioned track which separates my room from the working train line. It can only be accessed by hopping a wall or climbing out of my window, and only viewed from the studio or the train heading into London and back. I’d had a few trainspotting picnics there in the summers before or snuck out to listen to gigs when the sound travelled in a fortuitous direction, and it always seemed like a place awaiting purpose. I decided this was probably the right time to put the patch to work. I started by cutting a path through the buddleia, and then by clearing the ivy from the old track which would act as a raised bed structure. Train track shrubland is so rich with valuable flora and fauna that I didn’t want to mess with more than was necessary; it was a curation job for the most part. The soil looked beautiful as I dug down for roots. The ivy had contorted around aged chunks of glass and brick and, a little deeper, lots of half-burned coal— from the old steam trains, I suppose! I wondered what it would do to my future produce—maybe it could be a positive? I put down some cardboard, topped it up with compost, and threw a load of potatoes in. I have a thing for potatoes. I spent many sunny lunch breaks there. Sometimes, when restrictions eased, friends would join us to watch trains and potatoes and later we would eat them, but often it was just me and the blackbirds. I love listening to them fumbling through the undergrowth. If I could be a different creature, then I would be a blackbird, no contest. Photo credit: Dan Rawlings, 10 August 2021 Click to view Holly English's ECH Contributor Page |
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MARNIE FLEMING
Toronto, ON
Still Point of the Turning World, 2021
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We have a very urban pocket garden located on a busy street in downtown Toronto. Notwithstanding size, this space is my passion and my salvation—so much so that during this Covid pandemic, I no longer know which is the pathology and which is the coping mechanism.
Following the long winter lockdown of 2021, we were relieved to be in our garden again in early April. Here, we watched a female cardinal scouting for a nest, we observed the assortment of greens emerging, and we took in the delights of our wisteria budding overhead. Pulling out the winter die-back to make way for new growth provided cathartic release. It made room for not only rebirth but for hope, recollection, and reverie. I realized then that there is a calm to being in this space, or what T.S. Eliot called a “still point of the turning world.” Yet, somehow, our garden’s stillness draws its energy from the whirl around the edges. There is something extraordinary in the way our borders create a buffer against city life, but its margins don’t exclude or shut out that bustle as commotion seeps through the trees, cars zoom by, and muffled conversations are overheard. What happens in this wee patch extends well beyond its parameters. Ours is a paradoxical space with many perspectives, looking both inward and outward. For all that, what matters now is that this garden is a safe place in which the “turning world” of Covid seems very far away. Click to view Marnie Fleming's ECH Contributor Page |
MIREYA FOLCH-SERRA
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Peonies During the Pandemic, 2020
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FATIMA GARZAN
Waterloo, ON
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In Canada, I have created many imaginary gardens in my art, inspired by memories from the past. Growing up in a beautiful garden on the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, north of Tehran, I developed a deep and enduring love for nature that continues to influence my art practice today. But, unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to have a physical garden in Canada.
When Covid hit and took the world into lockdown, I experienced fear and uncertainty like many others. The masked faces and social distancing were all too real. Social distancing became human distancing, depriving us of seeing friends and loved ones. It was at this time that I experienced a shifting of aesthetics in my work. I noticed that my palette became muted, and instead of reds and oranges, I was using more greys and blues. Hard to describe, but I thought I was trying to see this as a way of adapting to the pandemic situation in a positive way! My work, Thistle Garden, is about the thistle plant, a common weed found in many gardens. It has many symbolic meanings, and one of them is a metaphor for strength and resilience. |
Thistle Garden, 2021
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REBECCA GIMMI
Toronto, ON
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The garden includes: Tiny Tim tomatoes, Millionaire tomatoes, Ugly Heart tomatoes, Habanero peppers, strawberries, morning glories, nasturtiums, mesclun, basil, spearmint, pineapple mint, orange mint, rosemary, thyme, small sunflowers, cilantro, parsley, and pinks.
I am so grateful to the seniors in my life who have taught me the joy of puttering in a garden. My mother and I discuss how my plants are doing each year and talk about the gardens of those neighbours now deceased, to respect the work and nurturing we remember: - Muriel's hands deadheading flowers, and pointing out the ladyslipper - Yvonne describing which parts are edible and how to prepare them - Don identifying plants by smell and touch, and what to feed hummingbirds - Pat selecting flowers and seeds to grow next year - Verona picking the blossoms for a vase. It's especially poignant to say how much my little balcony garden brings me joy, and especially during the pandemic, and especially as my building is currently being threatened by a developer for demolition. I will enjoy it as long as I can.
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Rebecca Gimmi is an arts advocate and the international projects officer at the University of Toronto. Previously, she was the program coordinator at the Art Museum, University of Toronto.
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Rebecca Gimmi's garden, January 2022
JAMELIE HASSAN
London, ON
Frog Fountain and Curing Pond, 2009
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One day, Ruth Skinner, a friend and artist, came by our place and saw a frog sitting alone on the edge of the curing pond. We speculated that this frog was drawn to the curing pond because of the frog fountain and had fallen in love. This reminded me of Ovid's poem Metamorphoses, about the transformation of bodies and the legendary sculptor Pygmallion, who fell in love with a sculpture he had carved.
In the past, I often painted the gardens “en plein air” during the spring, summer, and autumn seasons, but over this pandemic period, I did not have the motivation or focus to even do one modest watercolour. This watercolour, Frog Fountain and Curing Pond, is from 2009, an earlier period when I frequently pondered and painted the views of the gardens that surround us—the gardens that Ron had created. The frog stayed around for several months and kept us all company during the pandemic summer of 2021. Click to view Jamelie Hassan's ECH Contributor Page |
FERN HELFAND
Kelowna, BC
“The world is a garden whose walls are the state." Ibn Khaldun, 1377
“The world is a garden whose walls are the pandemic." Ron Benner, 2021
This image was taken in the spring of 2021 in a small town in southern BC.
I was on a short trip to install an exhibition that observed the logging industry, the environment, and the dilemma of economic realities and casualties.
When I saw this fenced tree garden on wheels, I thought it was like a perfect art piece ready-made for a gallery. To me, the sight embodied so many of the urgent environmental issues plaguing the world today and something like an image I might have seen in a science-fiction novel about earth after we have lost our access to nature.
Through the perspective of the title Pandemic Gardens, the fenced-in forest image, ironically shadowed by the sign for a coping device, seems to speak directly to how so many of us have been feeling over the past two years.
“The world is a garden whose walls are the pandemic." Ron Benner, 2021
This image was taken in the spring of 2021 in a small town in southern BC.
I was on a short trip to install an exhibition that observed the logging industry, the environment, and the dilemma of economic realities and casualties.
When I saw this fenced tree garden on wheels, I thought it was like a perfect art piece ready-made for a gallery. To me, the sight embodied so many of the urgent environmental issues plaguing the world today and something like an image I might have seen in a science-fiction novel about earth after we have lost our access to nature.
Through the perspective of the title Pandemic Gardens, the fenced-in forest image, ironically shadowed by the sign for a coping device, seems to speak directly to how so many of us have been feeling over the past two years.
LISA HIRMER / CHRISTINA KINGSBURY
Guelph, ON
On a cool, socially distanced walk this past spring, my friend Christina Kingsbury floated the idea of collaborating on a project. This was during the second—or maybe the third?—lockdown, and as much I did want to work with her, I too was feeling that wall “so thick and heavy” which Rachel describes in the exhibition call. With the candidness that fatigue often lends, I admitted that I wanted to work together, but the only thing I could imagine doing in the foreseeable future was making a garden for moths, meant to be experienced at night. This was a project idea that had been lingering in my mind for the past year or two, after I’d done some experimental work and research thanks to a grant from the Culture and Animals Foundation. I wasn’t sure where to begin making a public garden, so the idea stayed in my mind until that walk.
With characteristic generosity, Christina replied to my confession with, “Well, we could do that.”
With characteristic generosity, Christina replied to my confession with, “Well, we could do that.”
Walking and talking, we very quickly realized that this collaborative project actually made a lot of sense. Christina’s practice has involved working with plants for years, and her ReMediate project, a large public pollinator garden made in 2014, is thriving. Meanwhile, I had my work, about night-time pollinators and conceptual frameworks about experiences at the edge of human senses, waiting to become something.
Within a few days, Christina secured the perfect site (thanks to the generosity of Eramosa Herbals), and a few weeks later we received a grant from Pollination Guelph to start a test plot, and some additional support from my residency with Towards Braiding at Musagetes. We worked slowly and carefully, waiting to see how the plants would grow on the site—which has gone remarkably well. We’ve both observed an ease with which this project is coming into being, as if the garden wants to be made. Next year, thanks to a grant, we will expand the test plot into a full garden for the public, a place to visit in the dark that decentres human senses and asks visitors to spend time with what they do not and cannot know.
Within a few days, Christina secured the perfect site (thanks to the generosity of Eramosa Herbals), and a few weeks later we received a grant from Pollination Guelph to start a test plot, and some additional support from my residency with Towards Braiding at Musagetes. We worked slowly and carefully, waiting to see how the plants would grow on the site—which has gone remarkably well. We’ve both observed an ease with which this project is coming into being, as if the garden wants to be made. Next year, thanks to a grant, we will expand the test plot into a full garden for the public, a place to visit in the dark that decentres human senses and asks visitors to spend time with what they do not and cannot know.
Moth Garden, 2021
Christina Kingsbury is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores ecology and care through performance, installation, and social practice. She collaborates regularly with poets, ecologists, artists, choreographers and the public, including ecological public. Christina's work is rooted (often literally) in the ecology of the Grand River Watershed and the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and part of her practice works through relationships to land as a settler person. Her work has been exhibited locally and internationally.
SF HO
Vancouver, BC
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In June 2020, I launched a campaign to provide plant medicines to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour), including formulas for calming the nerves and boosting the immune system, as well as a tonic to support the liver. With a constant stream of racism in the media and in our communities, I feel like this past year has been especially painful for BIPOC. I wanted to offer something as a reminder that it is important to care for ourselves in the face of violence. Around the time that I launched the campaign, I also moved into a place with a yard where I could garden, and thus I began growing my own medicines. Right now, I am especially focused on growing plants to support harm reduction. Here in Vancouver, the opioid epidemic has killed more people than Covid-19 has. My hope is to eventually foster a rich garden of plant medicines that I can share with others. It’s been a wonderful experience to have plants as companions and to watch them grow over the seasons.
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LORRAINE JOHNSON
Toronto, ON
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Cultivating Community
I suspect that most of us were waking up at 3 a.m., worrying with profound dread, in those early days when the pandemic was first officially declared. Many were experiencing such dread before that. Existential dread. Many still are. And uppermost: where is sustenance, where is our food coming from? Ongoing questions. And so, one 3 a.m. late night/early morning in those first days, I decided to start a Facebook group, Grow Food Toronto, where people could share information, seeds, plants, soil, compost, pots, support, encouragement, inspiration, space, skills, tips, tricks, missteps, questions—basically, anything anyone needed in order to grow food in response to uncertainty and dread. Immediately, the generosity of community came to the fore. Cheyenne Sundance, of Sundance Harvest, and Rhonda Teitel-Payne, of Toronto Urban Growers, offered to co-administer the group, and together we got to work in the sharing of mutual aid. Natalie Boustead designed a logo: a shovel and garden fork ready for action. Strength came to the fore too. Already and always in existence, ready to be enlisted. Cheyenne started a weekly “Plant Trade" post, where people could say what they needed and others could share what they had. Beyond the obvious practical utility of this feature was the unexpected gift of finding reassurance in bleak moments: sometimes what we need can be found through the act of voicing our needs to community. The strength in that, the power of that. Depression can take a back seat when you know that a divided rhubarb crown is on its way across town in a bike basket, soon to be planted on a boulevard, to be harvested by anyone who wants or needs it. The main message of Grow Food Toronto—“Let’s grow a shit-ton of food,” and let’s share the food, the resources, and the skills, to ensure that everyone has access—was just as relevant before and during the pandemic as it will be after, if such a time can be conceived. My hope for what will grow out of the pandemic, in the gardens and communities we cultivate, is that we will ask a reinvigorated question: What are the seeds of opportunity and abundance (for people, plants, pollinators, and more) that we nurture when we enlist trowels and garden forks in service, support, and solidarity with all life? 
Growing Everywhere
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Survivor Tomato
Rhubarb and cucumber given away on
Lansdowne Avenue, Toronto |
Lorraine Johnson is a writer, editor, and community advocate who, when pressed to describe what unifies her work, has settled on the term “cultivation activist." The author of numerous books on growing native plants, gardening for pollinators, restoring habitat, and producing food in cities, Lorraine’s work focuses on people and communities growing plants, ecological health, and connection to nature and to each other. She is also the co-author, with Sheila Colla, of the recently published book A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators. For more information on Lorraine's writing and activism, please visit her website.
MARTYN JUDSON
London, ON
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I was given a lovely hanging basket in the spring, and I placed it strategically in the garden on a shepherd's crook. After the first night, I awoke to discover the basket lying on the grass with plants and flowers scattered down the hill. The stand had been pushed over by raccoons. I rushed out to tidy up the mess, a job made unpleasant by the pouring rain. I wondered whether to gather everything up and put it on the compost pile, but I thankfully decided better. I collected what was salvageable and packed down the soil, talking words of comfort to the plants as I felt the rain run down my back.
During the past three months, I have talked to the flowers and watered the basket daily, and the amazing growth is a joy to see. The basket now hangs from a hook well out of the reach of raccoons and squirrels. I recognize that we should never give up on nature because, with a little effort, we benefit so much. The photograph (taken 18/8/21) is a testament to what careful nurturing can do for nature. Thank you for the opportunity to share my horticultural experience with you, the Master Gardener himself. |
Hanging Basket, 2021
Martyn Judson grew up in England and studied medicine at Manchester University, UK. He emigrated to Canada and has practised medicine in London, Ontario, since the mid-1970s. His interests are sports, music, art, and reading, with the best place to do that being in his garden.
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IRABOTY KAZI
Hamilton, ON
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My Locus Amoenus (a.k.a. Happy Place)
The first time I saw Hamilton's Sherman Falls over a decade ago, I fell in love with the woods surrounding it. Over the years, I have moved in and out of Hamilton, but my connection to that space has remained constant. The beginning of the pandemic led me to move back to my parents' place. Being immuno-compromised meant avoiding going out at all costs. My outings for the rest of 2020 were limited to two bank visits, one doctor's appointment, and a cottage trip. Instead of going insane stuck inside, I became extremely anxious about going outside. At the end of December 2021, my father dragged me outdoors because I hadn’t left the house in two months. He took me to my favourite place in the city, Sherman Falls, to raise my spirits. As we walked down the snowy trails, I felt the fresh, cold air caress my face, and for a brief moment, everything felt normal again. It was the first time since the start of the pandemic that I hadn’t been afraid of the outside world. At the start of 2021, we went back but took a different path, one that was new to us. Although we have been going to that area for years, I don’t think any of us realized just how expansive it truly is. As I walked this “new” trail, taking in the beauty of the trees and the stream below us, I suddenly slipped and fell. The ground, camouflaged under dead leaves, was still muddy from rain the night before. I was so shocked by the fall that I just sat there. My first thought was, “Oh shit, my new coat is ruined!” but then I realized that it was the first time in a while that I was literally connected to the earth. There was no pavement, no hardwood floors, just me—sitting on the muddy ground, touching dead leaves. I laughed out loud because I didn’t know how to react. Curiosity led us to explore many other trails in the area. They are all so beautiful in their own way that we even felt joyful getting lost. A forty-five-minute loop that my father accidentally found on the Bruce Trail quickly became my “happy place.” We started going there almost every day throughout spring and summer. For forty-five minutes, I could escape the world to think about the moss, the flowers that blossom one day and die the next, the thorny rose bushes that scratched my legs, the birds singing in the morning, and how the light shifts throughout the day. This was the same area that we have visited for over a decade, and yet every sojourn felt different. We would discover something new every time and share our observations on the way home. My father began composing poems during our walks while I would think of my research and random things. We understood the physical and emotional benefits of being in nature, but we didn't expect the impact it would have on our creativity. |
Locus Amoenus #17, 2021, colour photograph
At the beginning of 2021, I would have claimed that I was fine being at home 24x7, but I now realize I was not okay and how much of a positive impact the woods have had on my mental health. I try to not take photos of that area because photos cannot begin to capture the divine beauty I see in front me, but I hope this picture can provide you with a glimpse.
Click to view Iraboty Kazi's ECH Contributor Page |
YAM LAU
Toronto, ON
Garden Thoughts: Cultivation and Intervention
I started gardening as a form of therapy during the pandemic when I struggled with various challenges. Prior to this, I had little interest in or knowledge of the activity. I was never an “earthy,” practical person. On an aesthetic level, however, I do have a deep fascination with Chinese garden design, its peculiar spatial and temporal dynamics, especially having experienced a number of them in Suzhou, which made a lasting impression on me. I am equally interested in the literati culture in classical China, a culture that embraced artistic practices and values as a lifestyle of retreat. I believe the literati spirit finds its most refined and extravagant aesthetic and philosophical expressions in the gardens.
Mental disturbance is a nasty thing, it shuts one down, then it closes in. Living in isolation during the prolonged pandemic, I became alienated from my own home. The space began to threaten me. Fortunately, a kind friend and her family were willing to host me and I moved out. For a while, I was not able to return home as it triggered mental distress each time I attempted.
To find a way out of this situation, I started volunteering at the community garden nearby. At first, just to get out, get connected, and get my hands dirty. On my first cold April day of volunteer work, I transplanted several rose bushes. They have since blossomed beautifully throughout the summer. Later, I started to cultivate my own “garden” in the backyard. The yard had been laid waste, never tended to, and looked forlorn ever since I started living in the house fifteen years ago (fig. 1). In late spring, I began paying attention to it. I use gardening to reconnect with myself and my home. I would come home during the day to work on the yard. While the interior space triggered anxiety, it was okay to work in the yard. Gradually, one plant at a time, at first vaguely, the garden began to look like a composition. And gradually, through gardening, I started to accept my home, or be accepted by it, again. It is a process. To a certain extent, I credit this reconnection with gardening (fig. 2–4).
It is now September; there is no more planting activity. After a summer of relative peace and enjoyment with the garden, I want to explore the meaning of the garden differently. I am making an art intervention at the garden, a work that will reenergize the garden. Inspired by certain spatial strategies in Chinese gardens and paintings, I want to introduce energy paths or conduits, in the form of miniature boardwalks, into the garden composition. These boardwalks are meandering paths in fragments; they behave much like the little paths (fig. 5) in classical Chinese landscape paintings that typically appear and disappear partially, in between sections of the scene. Aesthetically, these paths are deviced to connect and animate the varying and often disjointed spaces in the landscape, evoking a loose sense of spatial unity, yet without binding the elements conclusively.
It is not easy to describe the disposition of Chinese gardens. They are complex spatial and temporal arrangements. For me, these gardens are a self-animating cosmos, where all the elements are orchestrated to produce dynamic sequences of changes. Inside the garden, the spaces feel more alive, and larger even, than the outside world. In comparison, my garden is the work of an amateur. And yet, I experience a similar sense of delight in it. In the morning, I would sit there, look at it, and daydream. I lose myself by projecting being inside this small, tentative territory, and experience the same dynamics of constant transmutations of views, scale, dimensionalities, and awareness as in the Chinese gardens. The miniature boardwalk (fig. 6–10) interventions are meant to make manifest and articulate some of these unique spatial qualities. These boardwalk fragments are like refrains; they introduce intentions and animations into the little space. They enlarge the space in the imagination.
I cultivate my garden as it does me. It offers me composure and contentment. This intervention of scaled-model boardwalks is perhaps a way to make art relevant to life.
任鈞 Yam Lau
16 September 2021
I started gardening as a form of therapy during the pandemic when I struggled with various challenges. Prior to this, I had little interest in or knowledge of the activity. I was never an “earthy,” practical person. On an aesthetic level, however, I do have a deep fascination with Chinese garden design, its peculiar spatial and temporal dynamics, especially having experienced a number of them in Suzhou, which made a lasting impression on me. I am equally interested in the literati culture in classical China, a culture that embraced artistic practices and values as a lifestyle of retreat. I believe the literati spirit finds its most refined and extravagant aesthetic and philosophical expressions in the gardens.
Mental disturbance is a nasty thing, it shuts one down, then it closes in. Living in isolation during the prolonged pandemic, I became alienated from my own home. The space began to threaten me. Fortunately, a kind friend and her family were willing to host me and I moved out. For a while, I was not able to return home as it triggered mental distress each time I attempted.
To find a way out of this situation, I started volunteering at the community garden nearby. At first, just to get out, get connected, and get my hands dirty. On my first cold April day of volunteer work, I transplanted several rose bushes. They have since blossomed beautifully throughout the summer. Later, I started to cultivate my own “garden” in the backyard. The yard had been laid waste, never tended to, and looked forlorn ever since I started living in the house fifteen years ago (fig. 1). In late spring, I began paying attention to it. I use gardening to reconnect with myself and my home. I would come home during the day to work on the yard. While the interior space triggered anxiety, it was okay to work in the yard. Gradually, one plant at a time, at first vaguely, the garden began to look like a composition. And gradually, through gardening, I started to accept my home, or be accepted by it, again. It is a process. To a certain extent, I credit this reconnection with gardening (fig. 2–4).
It is now September; there is no more planting activity. After a summer of relative peace and enjoyment with the garden, I want to explore the meaning of the garden differently. I am making an art intervention at the garden, a work that will reenergize the garden. Inspired by certain spatial strategies in Chinese gardens and paintings, I want to introduce energy paths or conduits, in the form of miniature boardwalks, into the garden composition. These boardwalks are meandering paths in fragments; they behave much like the little paths (fig. 5) in classical Chinese landscape paintings that typically appear and disappear partially, in between sections of the scene. Aesthetically, these paths are deviced to connect and animate the varying and often disjointed spaces in the landscape, evoking a loose sense of spatial unity, yet without binding the elements conclusively.
It is not easy to describe the disposition of Chinese gardens. They are complex spatial and temporal arrangements. For me, these gardens are a self-animating cosmos, where all the elements are orchestrated to produce dynamic sequences of changes. Inside the garden, the spaces feel more alive, and larger even, than the outside world. In comparison, my garden is the work of an amateur. And yet, I experience a similar sense of delight in it. In the morning, I would sit there, look at it, and daydream. I lose myself by projecting being inside this small, tentative territory, and experience the same dynamics of constant transmutations of views, scale, dimensionalities, and awareness as in the Chinese gardens. The miniature boardwalk (fig. 6–10) interventions are meant to make manifest and articulate some of these unique spatial qualities. These boardwalk fragments are like refrains; they introduce intentions and animations into the little space. They enlarge the space in the imagination.
I cultivate my garden as it does me. It offers me composure and contentment. This intervention of scaled-model boardwalks is perhaps a way to make art relevant to life.
任鈞 Yam Lau
16 September 2021
fig 1. Backyard in April, 2021
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fig 2. Garden in June
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fig 3. Garden in June
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fig 4. Drawing of the garden
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fig 5. Example of a path in a Chinese painting
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fig 6. Placement of boardwalkproposals
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fig 7. Placement of boardwalk proposals, close-up
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fig 8. Boardwalk model render
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fig 9. Boardwalk model render
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fig 10. Boardwalk laser cut template
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fig 10.a Boardwalk laser cut template
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MICHELLE CORINNE LIU
Toronto, ON
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a garden in 12 acts
Twelve instances of garden space approached like 12 rounds of boxing, in the form of 12 aphorisms encountered by meandering along 12 fence posts each at their own stage of decay, 12 breaks in 12 stagings composed of 12 acts. This piece comes out of reflections on the meeting points of militancy, practice, failure and utopia, between training, meditation, and transformation, at the discomforting junctures of imperial botany, queer femme boxing and the garden as a space of refusal and possibility. Michelle Corinne Liu is an artist currently living in Tkaranto, with roots in Hong Kong and diaspora belonging. Their practice involves sometimes writing, sometimes sound, sometimes video, sometimes performance and sometimes interventions. They are interested in slowness and the making of rebellious poetics in the ordinary, the discarded and the minor textures of everyday life. They are fascinated by improper, deprofessional, non-disciplinary slips, and intrigued with friction and the resistance of slowly drawn tempos and unobvious publics.
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MIRIAM LOVE
London, ON
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When we moved into this house three years ago, our backyard was just a stamp of grass and high fences. Our garden took shape with cuttings from friends, sprinkled seeds, and Reforest London trees and berry bushes.
This year, however, my garden has largely been neglected. As someone working in a helping profession during Covid, I've had little time to plan or tend to this space. This means that every flower and unfurling squash vine is an unexpected bounty. I reap what I do not sow. The morning glories came late, and I worried they would not come at all, and yet by mid-summer, they were choking the volunteer sunflowers and tomatoes. I lost track of my planting, but wanting more and more to grow, I flung seeds out—nasturtiums spread, and giant zinnias crowded out the sage and thyme, shading the raspberries. The garden is haphazard—and not everything flourishes. But many things do, a riot of texture and colour. Things that grow in our gardens are not necessarily ours. I admired the first seven apples ripening in our ambrosia tree before they all disappeared one night. Stolen tomatoes are left to wither on the front stoop or bitten into and left to rot on the vine. Each one of the squashes from the tumbling vine has bite marks. |
The birds ate all the raspberries and serviceberries. One afternoon, from my home office, I watched a groundhog eat every flower off last year's broccoli plant. Good for you! Scale our fence or shimmy under it. Eat and dig and bite and live.
And rest: during the pandemic, our cat, Mosie, died. The two of us had been together for over twenty years. We buried her in the garden and covered her grave with a big granite rock and coleuses. We now have a “Covid dog," Quinn, who rips and snorts and knocks plants over, pulls at grass and basks in the sun. She digs, uncovering what's been before and what's to come. |
A transplant from Ohio, Miriam Love lives and works in London, Ontario. Growing up, her mother taught her the names of all the plants, which she tried so hard not to remember and now cannot forget. She is co-founder of Antler River Rally, a grassroots environmental group that organizes monthly clean-ups of Deshkan Ziibi (Thames River).
MARTHA MACGILLIVRAY
Kingston, ON
My Mom’s Garden, 2021
Martha MacGillivray grew up on a working farm in North Glengarry, Eastern Ontario. She comes by her love of gardening naturally, as both her grams and her mum were/are avid gardeners and helped to nurture her interest. She has continued to cultivate her connection to the natural world through her many travels and, closer to home, engaging with the local landscape, camera in hand. Recently, she has been working with clay at her local potter's guild. She is inspired by the natural world—the patterns, abstractions, and subtleties of nature. She has studied and worked in the holistic health field for the past two decades and is a practising registered massage therapist and energy practitioner. She still spends many weeks and weekends at the family farm helping her mom in the ever evolving gardens of her youth. Follow her on Instagram @marthamacphotos.
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At a time when our very life force, the air that sustains, and nourishes us—our breath--has become charged with fear and anxiety, this garden has been a refuge from the physical holding of breath and the worrying. My mom’s garden generously offered space: space to breathe deeply and freely; space to nourish and to nurture—the soil, the plants and myself; space to contemplate the reciprocal nature of giving and receiving, of beginnings and endings; space to consider the interconnectivity of the garden, the ecosystem, and humans; space to appreciate the visual delight and sensory experience of the gardening seasons. This summer, tending the garden has offered nourishment on a subtler level: nourishment of the body, of emotions, and mood. As the July garden bloomed in full, I found myself along a path to the healing nature of flowers. And, again, my mom’s garden offered space: space to be with flowers; space to study; space to walk and to chat with Saint John’s Wort, and Blue Salvia, to Zinnia, and Cosmos; space to spend time with Nicotiana, Rudbeckia, Echinacea, and Viola; space to know Bladder Campion, Thimble Berry, Mallow, and Borage; space to begin the healing journey of the emotional body; space to appreciate, with gratitude, the healing capacity of a garden, of plants, of nature on the human body, and spirit, and the threads that weave us together.
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RACHEL ANNE MACGILLIVRAY
Fredericton, NB
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When the pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020, I struggled to deal with what was happening. I couldn't go into the studio. I began to take walks through the snow with our son, Duncan, and plan where and what we would plant in the spring. I thought Jerusalem artichokes would be our saviour in a starvation situation, but there were none to be found for ordering. As the snow melted in April, Duncan and I came alive out in the garden. I started to build structures that vines could climb on and Dunc could play in. I harvested old branches from our woods to build supports and trellises. Most days, I stayed out until dark. We built a new flower bed around the house and filled it with seeds that came from my mom's garden in Glengarry, Ontario. It helped me to feel close to her and my family. Watching her flowers grow and bloom in my garden eased the pain of separation. Eventually, Duncan had his own garden, where he would plant trucks and tractors and onions. We would spend hours together outside—eating veggies, digging, planning, and planting. As the veggies started flourishing, I compulsively canned, still preparing for a food system collapse. We are incredibly lucky to have been able to keep our jobs and take care of our child in a sprawling country property. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that our garden saved the three of us. It continues to bring hope, connection, and clarity as we continue to grow and change together—myself, my husband Matt, Dunc, and our garden.
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Starting some calendula in my studio. I’m planting them into old clothes. January 2022.
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JOSH MAZZA
Hamilton, ON
Precious Little Paw Paws
Upon first learning about the often forgotten fruit tree of southern Ontario, I was very interested. However, it wasn't until I had the opportunity to taste it that I was obsessed.
A true jewel of the Carolinian forest, the paw paw is a native fruit tree, bearing fruit resembling something between a mango and banana in terms of taste and texture. Almost like the southern Ontario version of an avocado. Yet, few people even know it exists. Probably a result of the lack of public exposure of the Carolinian forest itself—one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in all of Canada. Known to be home to a larger number of both plants and animals than any other Canadian ecosystem, it makes up roughly only 1 percent of the country’s landmass. It is home to many interesting species of trees, including the likes of the Kentucky coffeetree, tulip tree, and magnolia tree.
And, of course, the paw paw.
As part of my college courses, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about this special ecosystem, including the fact that it is severely degraded, with only an estimated only 15 percent of the forest's area remaining. It originally extended from the southernmost point of Ontario north towards Guelph and eastward towards Oshawa.
In an effort to learn more about the uniqueness of this ecosystem and the plant species found there, we visited several local experts around Haldimand county, including a gentleman who has turned his own backyard into a passion project, cultivating many of these unique species of trees. It was here, in a small tree-filled backyard in Tillsonburg, that I finally got to taste the paw paw. My taste buds were fascinated. I proceeded to save the seeds and try my hand at overwintering and then germinating the seeds from that delicious piece of fruit I had the opportunity to taste last fall. It wasn’t until around the end of July that I was finally greeted by two little sprouted and green-leaved offspring.
While this whole journey simply started as a bit of an experiment and a somewhat selfish endeavour to provide myself future opportunities to taste this jewel of a fruit, this project has got me thinking about more ambitious plans: replanting the lost Carolinian forest. I have begun to collect some other local fruit, or rather nuts and seeds, of other Carolinian trees—trees which will also have to undergo a winter germination before I am able to regrow some of the majesty of the Carolinian forest in my own backyard!
Upon first learning about the often forgotten fruit tree of southern Ontario, I was very interested. However, it wasn't until I had the opportunity to taste it that I was obsessed.
A true jewel of the Carolinian forest, the paw paw is a native fruit tree, bearing fruit resembling something between a mango and banana in terms of taste and texture. Almost like the southern Ontario version of an avocado. Yet, few people even know it exists. Probably a result of the lack of public exposure of the Carolinian forest itself—one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in all of Canada. Known to be home to a larger number of both plants and animals than any other Canadian ecosystem, it makes up roughly only 1 percent of the country’s landmass. It is home to many interesting species of trees, including the likes of the Kentucky coffeetree, tulip tree, and magnolia tree.
And, of course, the paw paw.
As part of my college courses, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about this special ecosystem, including the fact that it is severely degraded, with only an estimated only 15 percent of the forest's area remaining. It originally extended from the southernmost point of Ontario north towards Guelph and eastward towards Oshawa.
In an effort to learn more about the uniqueness of this ecosystem and the plant species found there, we visited several local experts around Haldimand county, including a gentleman who has turned his own backyard into a passion project, cultivating many of these unique species of trees. It was here, in a small tree-filled backyard in Tillsonburg, that I finally got to taste the paw paw. My taste buds were fascinated. I proceeded to save the seeds and try my hand at overwintering and then germinating the seeds from that delicious piece of fruit I had the opportunity to taste last fall. It wasn’t until around the end of July that I was finally greeted by two little sprouted and green-leaved offspring.
While this whole journey simply started as a bit of an experiment and a somewhat selfish endeavour to provide myself future opportunities to taste this jewel of a fruit, this project has got me thinking about more ambitious plans: replanting the lost Carolinian forest. I have begun to collect some other local fruit, or rather nuts and seeds, of other Carolinian trees—trees which will also have to undergo a winter germination before I am able to regrow some of the majesty of the Carolinian forest in my own backyard!
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Joshua Mazza is a nature enthusiast from Stoney Creek, Ontario. He has a degree in zoology and a diploma in adventure expeditions and leadership. He has travelled to many unique wilderness destinations, including Vietnam and the Galapagos Islands. In South Africa, he interned as a safari guide. He has worked as a wildlife presenter and handler for close to a decade, with a specialty in birds of prey and falconry. He believes that nature education is important for everyone and benefits both physical and mental health.
ASHAR MOBEEN
Pickering, ON
Earth’s Lungs
Looking at the world through the lens of a camera is a uniquely rewarding experience. Each time I go out with my camera, I enter a realm separate from those around me. I dedicate myself to finding a subject and waiting for the perfect moment to click the shutter. It is within this juncture that the world can feel truly infinite.
Looking up at the night sky, I am mesmerized by the beauty and vastness of the cosmos. In the past century or so, we humans, inhabitants of a small planet orbiting an ordinary star, have made rapid advances only to realize how much we still don’t know about our planet. Mother Earth is such a miraculous place, and it is an absolute privilege to be able to go out each day and appreciate nature; how rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
My family had moved to Pickering in the winter of 2015 and shortly thereafter I had moved to Hamilton to pursue my undergraduate studies at McMaster University. Once COVID-19 made its way to Canada, educational institutions closed their doors and moved all operations online. I, like many of my peers, moved back home. Far removed from my one true love of school, I found myself scrambling to fill the void. Reading, writing, art, music, sports, and television all provided an escape from the strains and stress of online classes, but I needed to get out more.
While I had known of local Pickering trails and conservation areas, I seldom visited these places due to my limited time at home. With spring came warmer weather and of course, the opportunity to take walks more frequently. This was the perfect time to acquaint myself with my surroundings. I decided to explore all that Pickering had to offer – from parks, trails, to beaches, and villages.
My walks not only provided me with solitude and an opportunity to reflect, but seeing, looking at, and observing nature instilled in me a great appreciation and love for the world I have taken for granted. One day, it occurred to me that I should document these beautiful sights; I hoped to share what I was seeing with others, while preserving my observations in a digital database. The contemporary natural disasters fueled by the climate crisis I would read about or watch on the news reiterated this desire. I thought to myself: perhaps my images could inspire people to pay more attention to the world around them, while encouraging them to work together to protect and preserve it. Thus, I went and bought myself an entry-level Nikon D3500. Interestingly, I had always disliked the modern culture of documenting your every move on electronic devices. I grew up as a man of simple pleasures, content with enjoying each moment of life as my mind captured it.
However, photography has enabled me to not only view and appreciate these fleeting moments but share them with this online community. The wonder of nature lies in how interconnected everything is; as each of us shares our story over various landscapes, a bond is formed, embedding itself in the very fabric of space/time.
Looking at the world through the lens of a camera is a uniquely rewarding experience. Each time I go out with my camera, I enter a realm separate from those around me. I dedicate myself to finding a subject and waiting for the perfect moment to click the shutter. It is within this juncture that the world can feel truly infinite.
Looking up at the night sky, I am mesmerized by the beauty and vastness of the cosmos. In the past century or so, we humans, inhabitants of a small planet orbiting an ordinary star, have made rapid advances only to realize how much we still don’t know about our planet. Mother Earth is such a miraculous place, and it is an absolute privilege to be able to go out each day and appreciate nature; how rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
My family had moved to Pickering in the winter of 2015 and shortly thereafter I had moved to Hamilton to pursue my undergraduate studies at McMaster University. Once COVID-19 made its way to Canada, educational institutions closed their doors and moved all operations online. I, like many of my peers, moved back home. Far removed from my one true love of school, I found myself scrambling to fill the void. Reading, writing, art, music, sports, and television all provided an escape from the strains and stress of online classes, but I needed to get out more.
While I had known of local Pickering trails and conservation areas, I seldom visited these places due to my limited time at home. With spring came warmer weather and of course, the opportunity to take walks more frequently. This was the perfect time to acquaint myself with my surroundings. I decided to explore all that Pickering had to offer – from parks, trails, to beaches, and villages.
My walks not only provided me with solitude and an opportunity to reflect, but seeing, looking at, and observing nature instilled in me a great appreciation and love for the world I have taken for granted. One day, it occurred to me that I should document these beautiful sights; I hoped to share what I was seeing with others, while preserving my observations in a digital database. The contemporary natural disasters fueled by the climate crisis I would read about or watch on the news reiterated this desire. I thought to myself: perhaps my images could inspire people to pay more attention to the world around them, while encouraging them to work together to protect and preserve it. Thus, I went and bought myself an entry-level Nikon D3500. Interestingly, I had always disliked the modern culture of documenting your every move on electronic devices. I grew up as a man of simple pleasures, content with enjoying each moment of life as my mind captured it.
However, photography has enabled me to not only view and appreciate these fleeting moments but share them with this online community. The wonder of nature lies in how interconnected everything is; as each of us shares our story over various landscapes, a bond is formed, embedding itself in the very fabric of space/time.
Glen Major Forest, 2020
CATHERINE MORRISEY
London, ON
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During the pandemic, we retreated into our private world. We felt privileged to live in quiet woods and a deep garden retreat beside the river. As spring came after the winter of lockdown, the land gave us such joy and wonder. Possums appeared, raccoons with babies, robins and cardinals made nests, the chestnut trees flowered, and the catalpas suddenly leafed out and popped white blooms on top. Contact with the human world was fraught: just a swift trip to buy groceries and wine, and home again. My mother, who turned 100 in a nursing home, could not have visitors for a year and a half. I have only just this month been allowed back in to visit. We go to her garden to look at the blooms for clues about life.
Click to see Catherine Morrisey's ECH Contributor Page |
The Back Garden, 2021, acrylic on canvas
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OLIVIA MOSSUTO
Hamilton, ON
Shortly after the pandemic began, I had the great pleasure of meeting Ron Benner and Jamelie Hassan on Zoom in April 2020. I had asked to interview Ron about his gardens and how his artworks encouraged conversations about nature and the environment. Behind Ron was a triptych of watercolours by Jamelie, titled Solar Power. It is a work that lovingly details the solar lantern in their garden. It has since been replaced by a mosaic, also by Jamelie, and depicts in Arabic the phrase “a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government,” a quote by Sarah Kendzior. After many more meetings, I found myself as a studio assistant to both of them. I continue to learn about their practices and the nature of contemporary Canadian art, but I did not expect to learn the native and scientific names for plants, the Indigenous history of plants and food, how to use different plants for food and medicine, and the intense importance of plant life as a signifier of culture and medium for art.
In no particular order, here is some of what I have learned. I learned the names of anthuriums. I learned that nicotiana has a strong smell at night, and that the leaves can be used to make dried tobacco for local elders, including ECH advisory circle members Dan and Mary Lou Smoke. I learned that tropical water plants need to be fished out of native ponds, lest they rot. I learned that Ron Benner’s photographic/garden installation As The Crow Flies, at Museum London, provides community members with seeds and tomatoes and solace among other things. I learned that the farming and harvesting of indigo and cochineal in Oaxaca, Mexico, is a very secret and lucrative process. I learned that the real name of the Thames River is actually Deshkan Ziibi (or Antler River). I learned that a diseased corn plant can yield a very special delicacy known as huitlacoche—frequently eaten and appreciated in Mexico. I learned that black walnuts, despite being dangerous projectiles utilized by squirrels, have a husk that can be boiled down and used as a dye. I learned that if you uproot canna lilies at the end of their growing season, you can save their roots for the following year. I learned that if you do not take great care with amaranth, it will re-seed and spread like an unyielding force.
My learning and unlearning has been the most important part of gardening and art making. Most importantly, I learned that I will never stop learning for as long as I assist Ron Benner and Jamelie Hassan with the very important and timely work that they continue to do. Pandemic Gardens is a testament to that.
In no particular order, here is some of what I have learned. I learned the names of anthuriums. I learned that nicotiana has a strong smell at night, and that the leaves can be used to make dried tobacco for local elders, including ECH advisory circle members Dan and Mary Lou Smoke. I learned that tropical water plants need to be fished out of native ponds, lest they rot. I learned that Ron Benner’s photographic/garden installation As The Crow Flies, at Museum London, provides community members with seeds and tomatoes and solace among other things. I learned that the farming and harvesting of indigo and cochineal in Oaxaca, Mexico, is a very secret and lucrative process. I learned that the real name of the Thames River is actually Deshkan Ziibi (or Antler River). I learned that a diseased corn plant can yield a very special delicacy known as huitlacoche—frequently eaten and appreciated in Mexico. I learned that black walnuts, despite being dangerous projectiles utilized by squirrels, have a husk that can be boiled down and used as a dye. I learned that if you uproot canna lilies at the end of their growing season, you can save their roots for the following year. I learned that if you do not take great care with amaranth, it will re-seed and spread like an unyielding force.
My learning and unlearning has been the most important part of gardening and art making. Most importantly, I learned that I will never stop learning for as long as I assist Ron Benner and Jamelie Hassan with the very important and timely work that they continue to do. Pandemic Gardens is a testament to that.
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Olivia Mossuto assisting in the installation As the Crow Flies
Photo credit (above): Ron Benner |
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All photos are a document of Ron Benner's photographic/garden installation As the Crow Flies at Museum London. Photo Credit: Olivia Mossuto
KIM NEUDORF
London, ON
This painting and poem are part of a series of works inspired by a poetry workshop which looked to plant “logic" (the logic of plant language and movement) as both guide and collaborator for compositional improvisation. In writing and painting, I've been thinking through and visualizing the growth pathways and slow communication of ivy and pitcher plants, such as those which surround my home. This “logic" speaks to my personal experience of trying to write and create during the pandemic, which has been a space of slow, difficult, inward-turned work that is hard to articulate or adapt to previous modes of working. Becoming attentive to the spaces and temporalities of plants (ways to reach, root, reveal, make contact) can inform textual and visual structure, choice, and intuitive leaps—or what poet T.C. Tolbert calls “the process of healing and having to love the smallest things or changes.”
smallest slowest do field, 2021, acrylic and watercolour on paper
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Happy Waste
unlucky feels fragile waste happy walls wait wait unlucky liquid a fly feels walls walk no luck feels waste wait image holes rant ray waste leavings locating wooly bugs plant songs trumpet reddish & lures opposite business wall walks |
break bare fly shuttle visiting codes waste leaves voracious happy waste new hairs indirectly walls walk digestive bugs healing having smallest slowest do field move walls are wholes |
JENNIFER RUDDER
Toronto, ON
Pandemic Response: Lilacs and Tulips
My mother's parents emigrated from Brighton, England, to Toronto in the early twentieth century, settling in East York, where I was born. My grandfather signed up for service in World War 1 and was shipped overseas. Both Lily and Fred Waller had worked in service on estates: she inside the house, my grandfather in the gardens and fields. Down the street from us in East York, they had a gorgeous English garden with flowers and shrubs and roses, and vegetables, raspberry canes, fruit trees, and a large compost area. Following World War II, Fred built our house for my parents, working with my mother and father to create a large and beautiful garden—with flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees. While Fred was at war, Lily founded the East York Horticultural Society.
My grandmother Lily was a great seamstress and did beautiful needlework. In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, inspired by my grandmother, I took up embroidery and began stitching, discovering it to be a meditative and calming practice. I called out to friends to send me any vintage floral fabrics they had around. A friend responded, mailing an old tablecloth with exuberant splashes of lilacs and tulips in the corners. I sat in my grandmother’s needlework chair and stitched. I am hooked now and pick up some stitching whenever I feel anxious. I am currently working on a series of embroideries from photographs on the website of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. These works are for my grandfather Fred Waller.
My mother's parents emigrated from Brighton, England, to Toronto in the early twentieth century, settling in East York, where I was born. My grandfather signed up for service in World War 1 and was shipped overseas. Both Lily and Fred Waller had worked in service on estates: she inside the house, my grandfather in the gardens and fields. Down the street from us in East York, they had a gorgeous English garden with flowers and shrubs and roses, and vegetables, raspberry canes, fruit trees, and a large compost area. Following World War II, Fred built our house for my parents, working with my mother and father to create a large and beautiful garden—with flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees. While Fred was at war, Lily founded the East York Horticultural Society.
My grandmother Lily was a great seamstress and did beautiful needlework. In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, inspired by my grandmother, I took up embroidery and began stitching, discovering it to be a meditative and calming practice. I called out to friends to send me any vintage floral fabrics they had around. A friend responded, mailing an old tablecloth with exuberant splashes of lilacs and tulips in the corners. I sat in my grandmother’s needlework chair and stitched. I am hooked now and pick up some stitching whenever I feel anxious. I am currently working on a series of embroideries from photographs on the website of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. These works are for my grandfather Fred Waller.
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JUDITH RODGER
London, ON
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We went for a late-afternoon walk in our garden during the first spring of the pandemic.
As I was perusing a patch of the native plant golden ragwort, I spotted a tiny sleeping white-tailed deer fawn, dropped by its mother for safety amidst the tall plants. It was so well camouflaged against the dry leaves on the ground I almost missed it hiding in plain sight. A short time later, I approached from the other side and took this photo of the fawn looking at me with one eye. This encounter in our garden brought us both joy in the midst of the gloom of the pandemic. The memory has continued to sustain me. My Calamondin Orange Tree
About twenty years ago, a friend gave me a small plant covered with fragrant white blossoms and three tiny oranges, which, on closer examination, proved to be faux. However, it was not long before real oranges began to appear on what I learned was a calamondin orange plant, native to China and a hybrid of mandarin and kumquat. My plant has grown over the years to become a small tree, which is moved out to the patio after wintering indoors. At some point, I discovered that I could make marmalade from the tiny oranges, a marmalade very popular with friends due to its distinctive, tart taste. It is an easy project, as the harvest is usually small, with the marmalade processed over two days. While the plant produces fruit throughout the year, the biggest harvests are usually in January, when the bright oranges and glossy green leaves contrast against the snow outside the window. In the fall of 2021, I repotted the calamondin orange, using a much bigger pot. The result was the largest harvest ever and even more marmalade to share with friends, a special pandemic pleasure to savour in these challenging days.
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Fawn in the Afternoon, 2020
Calamondin Orange Marmalade
2 cups sliced and seeded calamondins with juice 1.5 cups water 2 cups sugar Seed and thinly slice the calamondins. Measure fruit and mix with water in a pot with a heavy bottom. Boil for 15 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cool and refrigerate in the pot overnight. (The mixture can be frozen the next day for processing later.) The next day, measure cooked fruit. Add one cup of sugar for each cup of cooked fruit. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Continue boiling vigorously until the mixture reaches the jelling point: 220 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer. Remove pan from heat and ladle marmalade into clean, sterilized hot jars and seal. Store in the refrigerator. As the harvest is small, I usually use ½ cup jars so that I have more to give away! |
JAYCE SALLOUM
Vancouver, BC
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getting close while apart
and a part of this a garden of sorts té de limon a single stock that friends gave me in March grew into this bush split into 30 or so stocks planted them around the grounds. #everythinggrowsinthejungle @jaycesalloum, nayarit Click to view Jayce Salloum's ECH Contributor Page |
ROLAND SCHUBERT
London, ON
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During the pandemic, I have been collaborating with Ron and Jamelie by exhibiting some of the artworks from the Embassy Cultural House's online exhibitions in the front window of my business Colour By Schubert on King Street in downtown London, Ontario. As museums and galleries closed down, people in London were able to see original artworks from the street. The ECH's coordinating editor, Tariq Hassan Gordon, called this “Cloud to Street" and allowed the public to access art safely, in person.
Over the years, I have visited Ron and Jamelie's studio building many times, and I was always impressed by the view of their front yard from the kitchen window. This is a photograph of that view which I took before the pandemic was declared and everything went into lockdown. |
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SANDRA SEMCHUK
Vancouver, BC
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She raised her arms
above her head and shook shook hard. She shook off the roots that ran through the desiccated grass and filled what remained of the waters. She shook off the fur and the lizard skin and the feathers and the fear. And she ran to the tree and stopped. And from her throat came a song she half knew, a song that moved her hands, that moved her feet, her jaw, knees, her hips and thighs that moved her eyes, her nose and her ears in the intricate ballet of a mother’s sway and warmth. |
Catching herself in the act of making land, 2021
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GEORDIE SHEPHERD
London, ON
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Colborne Street, London, Ontario, Fall 2021
We inherited this garden when we bought our house in 2009 and, since then, I’ve tried to intervene as little as possible and let nature, both wild and cultivated, grow. It gave me a lot of pleasure during the pandemic to wander through it, treading an overgrown, forgotten path to observe its changes. The single orange flower in the foreground, a California poppy, holds significant meaning for me because they grew wild on my late father's driveway, and I’ve been trying to grow them for years without success, so I was happy when they finally took root alongside my driveway. Geordie Shepherd (BFA, Concordia University, 1991; MFA, University of New Mexico, 2004) has exhibited across Canada, the USA, and Europe. A participant of many artistic residencies and awards, Geordie teaches at Western University and maintains his studio practice in London, Ontario. |
CAROLYN SIMMONS
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GABRIELLA SOLTI
London, ON
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I have never had a Christmas without a freshly cut pine tree filling the room with its distinctive sweet and refreshing scent. The scent invokes a myriad of memories from my childhood: spending time with my family and long hikes in the forests. A couple of weeks before last Christmas, I headed to the nearby supermarket to buy a pine tree small enough to carry home on foot. I learned that all pine trees for Christmas were sold out many months before. Suddenly, everyone wanted a little nature in their homes in the pandemic year.
I was distressed by the thought of spending a Christmas without the scent and festive look of a pine tree in my home. Thus, the night before Christmas Eve, I went for a long walk with a pair of pruning shears in my hand, looking for handsome branches of the various pine trees that lined the street. I found other treasures too: shrubs with colourful winter stems, and common tansy on the roadside with surprisingly well-kept yellow buttons. Happy with my gatherings, I arranged them at home in a glass jar fixed to a kenzan. I adorned them with tiny blue, yellow, and red LED lights to create a festive look and placed them on the dinner table. In a couple of weeks, to our surprise, this arrangement became a flowering garden. The first week of January, we noticed the first buds. Then, soon enough, groups of small green leaves followed. After a while, flowers started to appear gradually and went into full bloom. It was beautiful! During one dinner, we noticed that a small green cone appeared under one of the pine branches. Every day, we looked at our Christmas Garden with anticipation: Will there be a new bud, a new leaf, a new flower today? We marvelled at how little things—basic ingredients such as clean tap water, the uniform heating of my rental apartment, and the light emitted from tiny LEDs—were enough for our Christmas Garden to thrive, bloom, flourish. It was a lesson in resilience and what truly matters. During dinners with my son, we often contemplated on our good fortune: that we live in a peaceful country, clean water flows from the tap whenever we want, and the grocery store’s shelves are filled with an abundance of produce. |
Christmas Garden, December 24, 2020
Gabriella Solti is a Hungarian Canadian visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the role and value of labour, skill, and play in the formation of identity and community.
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VERA TAMARI
Ramallah, Palestine
ONLY A WEED: Reflections on the Astomaea seselifolia, a plant in the Palestinian countryside
At first, I was not impressed by the humble plant assigned to me, the Astomaea seselifolia. It is a lower plant in the botanical kingdom, a weed. It was listed by the British Mandate amongst the thirty-two weeds to be exterminated from the Palestinian hills and plains.
Why the Astomaea seselifolia, I asked myself. I was led in my probe into the infinite world of botany: I learnt of the existence of immeasurable numbers of families, ranks, strata, and substrata, upper and lower plants, and so many other complex classifications and categories, all shaping the magnificence of the plant kingdom. I soon realized that my plant, the Astomaea seselifolia is largely native to the Mediterranean and grows freely among vineyards and olive groves. Such an obscure plant, I thought, it did not even have a common name, as most plants do, other than its composite, pompous-sounding Latin name, which, when deciphered, meant:
ASTOMAEA, from the word STOMATE (plural STOMATA), is a minute pore found on the leaf of a plant and stem epidermis which is used for gas exchange and hydration. Astomate is a non-stomate bearing plant or lacking stomates in the epidermis.
SESELI—flowers or leaves which are borne directly from the stem.
FOLIA—(singular FOLIUM) plant leaves.
Did this breaking down of that Latin word explain to me anything further about the nature of this plant? Not at all.
Eventually, I learnt that the Astomaea seselifolia is of the Umbelliferae family, named after the radially shaped flower heads called umbels. Such umbrella-shaped blooms have about 3,000 species worldwide, including the more beneficial and edible plants in the same family such as carrots, celery, parsley, fennel, etc. Sadly, the Astomaea seselifolia has no culinary benefits whatsoever like its edible cousins—it is only a weed.
Slowly, I began to feel a strange empathy towards my Astomaea seselifolia, as one would to an outcast acquaintance or friend. For, lo and behold, despite its inferior status as a weed, this same plant portrayed a certain regal elegance: growing on tall, straight stems, whose radial white blooms, sometimes poetically called “Queen Ann’s Lace,” form together a mesh of graceful white “clouds” that sway elegantly in the breezy summer winds of Palestine. Season after season, the Astomaea seselifolia graces the Palestinian countryside with its ethereal beauty, defying all laws of extermination, all giant walls built, and all fields and trees bulldozed.
At first, I was not impressed by the humble plant assigned to me, the Astomaea seselifolia. It is a lower plant in the botanical kingdom, a weed. It was listed by the British Mandate amongst the thirty-two weeds to be exterminated from the Palestinian hills and plains.
Why the Astomaea seselifolia, I asked myself. I was led in my probe into the infinite world of botany: I learnt of the existence of immeasurable numbers of families, ranks, strata, and substrata, upper and lower plants, and so many other complex classifications and categories, all shaping the magnificence of the plant kingdom. I soon realized that my plant, the Astomaea seselifolia is largely native to the Mediterranean and grows freely among vineyards and olive groves. Such an obscure plant, I thought, it did not even have a common name, as most plants do, other than its composite, pompous-sounding Latin name, which, when deciphered, meant:
ASTOMAEA, from the word STOMATE (plural STOMATA), is a minute pore found on the leaf of a plant and stem epidermis which is used for gas exchange and hydration. Astomate is a non-stomate bearing plant or lacking stomates in the epidermis.
SESELI—flowers or leaves which are borne directly from the stem.
FOLIA—(singular FOLIUM) plant leaves.
Did this breaking down of that Latin word explain to me anything further about the nature of this plant? Not at all.
Eventually, I learnt that the Astomaea seselifolia is of the Umbelliferae family, named after the radially shaped flower heads called umbels. Such umbrella-shaped blooms have about 3,000 species worldwide, including the more beneficial and edible plants in the same family such as carrots, celery, parsley, fennel, etc. Sadly, the Astomaea seselifolia has no culinary benefits whatsoever like its edible cousins—it is only a weed.
Slowly, I began to feel a strange empathy towards my Astomaea seselifolia, as one would to an outcast acquaintance or friend. For, lo and behold, despite its inferior status as a weed, this same plant portrayed a certain regal elegance: growing on tall, straight stems, whose radial white blooms, sometimes poetically called “Queen Ann’s Lace,” form together a mesh of graceful white “clouds” that sway elegantly in the breezy summer winds of Palestine. Season after season, the Astomaea seselifolia graces the Palestinian countryside with its ethereal beauty, defying all laws of extermination, all giant walls built, and all fields and trees bulldozed.
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Vera Tamari, Mantra, sculptural installation,
180 x 100 x 200 cm, plastic, clay, acrylic paint and wood.
Seed Control Exhibition at the AM Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, 2020
180 x 100 x 200 cm, plastic, clay, acrylic paint and wood.
Seed Control Exhibition at the AM Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, 2020
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Although the Astomaea seselifolia is unrecognized as a beneficial seed, and because of its dull shape—made of two opposing curved pods—which does not necessarily inspire the creation of an artwork, I chose to magnify this humble seed and give it a visual and aesthetic significance.
For my contribution to this project, I represented the Astomaea Seselifolia seed as a giant three-dimensional sculptural piece. The seed, made of inflated, transparent plastic, takes the shape of a womb where life’s cycle begins. The membranous shape floats in space to find a home above a disc, moving in slow, circular motion with hundreds of smaller seeds arranged in concentric rings like a talismanic mantra—on the floor. The mantra lovingly nurtures the seeds, making them bloom into lace-like flowers which dance gracefully to the rhythm of the delicate breeze among the summer wheat. |
Sketch of Astomaea seselifolia, 2020
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JEFF THOMAS
Ottawa, ON
GardenShip and State Exhibition, Museum London, London, Ontario, 2021-22: Waiting for the Delegates' Arrival
The first time I saw one of Ron Benner’s garden projects was in 2007 at AXENÉO7 Gallery in Gatineau, Quebec. On the day we visited, Ron was overseeing his traditional corn roast event. I was impressed with the garden and the incorporation of images mounted on the trellis fencing. I remember thinking to myself that I would have loved to introduce Ron and Jamelie to my elders at the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve because I knew we would have a good conversation sitting around the kitchen table. My elders were my step-grandfather Bert General and his sister Emily General, who were still running the family farm in the late 1960s, where Emily had a large garden by the chicken coop.
The first time I saw one of Ron Benner’s garden projects was in 2007 at AXENÉO7 Gallery in Gatineau, Quebec. On the day we visited, Ron was overseeing his traditional corn roast event. I was impressed with the garden and the incorporation of images mounted on the trellis fencing. I remember thinking to myself that I would have loved to introduce Ron and Jamelie to my elders at the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve because I knew we would have a good conversation sitting around the kitchen table. My elders were my step-grandfather Bert General and his sister Emily General, who were still running the family farm in the late 1960s, where Emily had a large garden by the chicken coop.
The opportunity to work with Ron came about in 2021 for the exhibition GardenShip and State at Museum London. Curator Patrick Mahon invited me to take part as a co-curator and artist. I finally had my opportunity to collaborate with Ron and was thrilled that he agreed to take part.
It wasn’t long before our collaboration became a Covid-influenced project. The original plan was to have my new work, Corn = Life, connect with Ron’s corn roast at the exhibition opening. But the opening was postponed due to pandemic restrictions and, now having more time, I began to consider a new work for the exhibition—an installation (my first) outside the main gallery. I was given window space in the Community Gallery room, from which I could see the Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River) where it comes in from the west and branches off north and south. Below the panoramic window in the community space is where Ron’s garden project is located.
It wasn’t long before our collaboration became a Covid-influenced project. The original plan was to have my new work, Corn = Life, connect with Ron’s corn roast at the exhibition opening. But the opening was postponed due to pandemic restrictions and, now having more time, I began to consider a new work for the exhibition—an installation (my first) outside the main gallery. I was given window space in the Community Gallery room, from which I could see the Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River) where it comes in from the west and branches off north and south. Below the panoramic window in the community space is where Ron’s garden project is located.
In a sense, we were carrying on the tradition from ancient times, when Indigenous people met and camped at the river confluence. GardenShip and State became a meeting ground for artists and writers.
My vision for the exhibition and its cross-cultural mix of artists and writers was to use the tenets of the Two Row Treaty of 1613 as a precept for our project. The treaty was made between my Haudenosaunee ancestors and the emerging colony of Dutch settlers around the Albany, New York, area. In essence, the treaty was the recognition of each other’s autonomy: to live side by side without interfering in each other’s affairs. I felt that this project was itself a living document that could be an example of artists and writers living side by side and talking about our views on the political and environmental landscape.
Corn = Life reflects my thoughts on Ron’s garden and the messages represented by the images mounted on the trellis fencing. The combination of living plants with images reminded me of my work juxtaposing historical images of Indigenous people with my contemporary photographs. The juxtaposition stimulates a renewal of the life blood of the historical images.
When considering images I could use for my installation, I asked Ron to send me some samples of the corn he had grown. I also asked if I could borrow the trellis fencing. Not only did Ron agree, but it was the same fencing he had used in his 2007 project. I received a large box from Ron containing corn along with tobacco and other produce. I photographed the corn and tobacco in my studio by holding each piece in my hand. This was inspired by my step-grandfather Bert, who demonstrated the traditional way of braiding corn for drying. I had photographed Bert holding a cob of white corn in his hand as he pulled the corn silk off each cob.
My vision for the exhibition and its cross-cultural mix of artists and writers was to use the tenets of the Two Row Treaty of 1613 as a precept for our project. The treaty was made between my Haudenosaunee ancestors and the emerging colony of Dutch settlers around the Albany, New York, area. In essence, the treaty was the recognition of each other’s autonomy: to live side by side without interfering in each other’s affairs. I felt that this project was itself a living document that could be an example of artists and writers living side by side and talking about our views on the political and environmental landscape.
Corn = Life reflects my thoughts on Ron’s garden and the messages represented by the images mounted on the trellis fencing. The combination of living plants with images reminded me of my work juxtaposing historical images of Indigenous people with my contemporary photographs. The juxtaposition stimulates a renewal of the life blood of the historical images.
When considering images I could use for my installation, I asked Ron to send me some samples of the corn he had grown. I also asked if I could borrow the trellis fencing. Not only did Ron agree, but it was the same fencing he had used in his 2007 project. I received a large box from Ron containing corn along with tobacco and other produce. I photographed the corn and tobacco in my studio by holding each piece in my hand. This was inspired by my step-grandfather Bert, who demonstrated the traditional way of braiding corn for drying. I had photographed Bert holding a cob of white corn in his hand as he pulled the corn silk off each cob.
This image became the central part of a new panel work entitled From the Garden of Ron Benner.
The pandemic threw many challenges at Patrick Mahon and me, but, in the end, the project and my collaboration with Ron proved to be one of my pandemic highlights. I envision pursuing more work with Ron in the future. Just like the garden, new seeds have been planted.
LARRY TOWELL
Bothwell, ON
Fairy Creek Old-Growth Logging Protests & How Nature Saved Me From Covid
I had been unable to travel for nearly two years due to Covid, but in November 2021, I packed a suitcase for the Fairy Creek anti-logging protest camps in British Columbia. I’d be outside all of the time, so I felt safe. In the end, nature saved me during the pandemic by visiting some of those who were trying to save nature.
In the spring of 2021, when blockades began, the RCMP arrested more than 1,100 people in the largest nonviolent, direct-action campaign in Canadian history. The dissent was being directed against old-growth logging. Campaigners used their bodies, with arms locked inside of “sleeping dragons,” encased in cement and often buried, to close roads to logging trucks before the police “extracted” them, which often took four hours or more. The blockaders included environmental activists and some First Nation members against logging company Teal-Jones. They also see current logging practices, including clearcutting, as nonsustainable and a contributing factor to global warming, including the flooding that immediately followed my visit.
I had been unable to travel for nearly two years due to Covid, but in November 2021, I packed a suitcase for the Fairy Creek anti-logging protest camps in British Columbia. I’d be outside all of the time, so I felt safe. In the end, nature saved me during the pandemic by visiting some of those who were trying to save nature.
In the spring of 2021, when blockades began, the RCMP arrested more than 1,100 people in the largest nonviolent, direct-action campaign in Canadian history. The dissent was being directed against old-growth logging. Campaigners used their bodies, with arms locked inside of “sleeping dragons,” encased in cement and often buried, to close roads to logging trucks before the police “extracted” them, which often took four hours or more. The blockaders included environmental activists and some First Nation members against logging company Teal-Jones. They also see current logging practices, including clearcutting, as nonsustainable and a contributing factor to global warming, including the flooding that immediately followed my visit.
Larry Towell is a photographer, poet, musician, and oral historian known for his photographs of sites of political conflict in Afghanistan, Central America, Mexico, and Palestine, among others. He is an award-winning photojournalist and the first Canadian to be made a member of Magnum Photos. He lives in rural southwestern Ontario with his wife, Ann, and sharecrops a 75-acre farm.
DOT TUER / ALBERTO GOMEZ
Toronto, ON / Corrientes, Argentina
Corrientes Garden: la tierra sin mal
When the pandemic began with a global lockdown in March 2020, I was in Toronto, Canada, and my partner, Alberto, in Corrientes, Argentina. Two weeks later, both countries closed their borders. Almost a year later, when border restrictions began to ease and flights resumed, I flew to Argentina in early December to reunite with Alberto and our dog, Kera, in our Corrientes home, its walled patio garden our refuge from a world ever changed and uncertain.
Inside the white-washed walls of the garden, palm trees sway overhead and papaya trees grow stick-like tall into the sky; banana trees flower and bear fruit, die and are reborn; guava trees fill the air with the scent of citrus and quince. There are climbing vines of maracuyá and white jasmine and pink mandeville. There is a bird-of-paradise flower and a dwarf mango tree, yellow orchids and a profusion of patujú, Heliconia rostrata with cascading red and yellow pods, known colloquially as a hanging lobster claw or false bird-of-paradise, home to the hummingbirds.
A part of the garden is filled with cacti, gathered by Alberto during forays to the lowland jungle forest (monte) of Corrientes and the highland plains (altiplano) of the Salta region. Some of the cacti have grown to the size of trees. In the heat of summer nights, they burst forth with myriad white blooms that last until dawn. Nestled amongst their towering trunks, prickly pear cacti flower a delicate orange. The grapevine that criss-crosses the patio extends its tendrils to the cacti in whispered embrace.
As dawn becomes day, the hummingbirds’ wings shimmer in the morning light and thrushes call to each other in melodic trills and the yellow-breasted pitogüés who nest in the guava trees squawk to be fed. At siesta time, gnarled lizards patrol the garden walls and bluebirds stand sentinel over ripening red and purple cacti fruit. As day becomes dusk, the deafening buzz of cicadas signals the coming darkness. At night, strange translucent salamanders appear, their pearl-pink bodies and bulging eyes clinging to the white-washed walls near the patio lights, hunting with outstretched dagger tongues.
In the garden, time dissolves into sensorial flux; the past is the saturated memory of the present, the future the saturated memory of the past. The Guaraní masks we hold in our hands are portals to this other side of time. We look out from behind them to what lies beyond the garden walls: a world divided and policed by technology, the global north its matrix and the global south its sacrifice zone, its algorithms reshaping our thoughts and dreams. The masks speak to another way of being in the world, of a past and future that resist the earth’s destruction. Our pandemic garden offers sanctuary, and pause, to listen to their counsel.
When the pandemic began with a global lockdown in March 2020, I was in Toronto, Canada, and my partner, Alberto, in Corrientes, Argentina. Two weeks later, both countries closed their borders. Almost a year later, when border restrictions began to ease and flights resumed, I flew to Argentina in early December to reunite with Alberto and our dog, Kera, in our Corrientes home, its walled patio garden our refuge from a world ever changed and uncertain.
Inside the white-washed walls of the garden, palm trees sway overhead and papaya trees grow stick-like tall into the sky; banana trees flower and bear fruit, die and are reborn; guava trees fill the air with the scent of citrus and quince. There are climbing vines of maracuyá and white jasmine and pink mandeville. There is a bird-of-paradise flower and a dwarf mango tree, yellow orchids and a profusion of patujú, Heliconia rostrata with cascading red and yellow pods, known colloquially as a hanging lobster claw or false bird-of-paradise, home to the hummingbirds.
A part of the garden is filled with cacti, gathered by Alberto during forays to the lowland jungle forest (monte) of Corrientes and the highland plains (altiplano) of the Salta region. Some of the cacti have grown to the size of trees. In the heat of summer nights, they burst forth with myriad white blooms that last until dawn. Nestled amongst their towering trunks, prickly pear cacti flower a delicate orange. The grapevine that criss-crosses the patio extends its tendrils to the cacti in whispered embrace.
As dawn becomes day, the hummingbirds’ wings shimmer in the morning light and thrushes call to each other in melodic trills and the yellow-breasted pitogüés who nest in the guava trees squawk to be fed. At siesta time, gnarled lizards patrol the garden walls and bluebirds stand sentinel over ripening red and purple cacti fruit. As day becomes dusk, the deafening buzz of cicadas signals the coming darkness. At night, strange translucent salamanders appear, their pearl-pink bodies and bulging eyes clinging to the white-washed walls near the patio lights, hunting with outstretched dagger tongues.
In the garden, time dissolves into sensorial flux; the past is the saturated memory of the present, the future the saturated memory of the past. The Guaraní masks we hold in our hands are portals to this other side of time. We look out from behind them to what lies beyond the garden walls: a world divided and policed by technology, the global north its matrix and the global south its sacrifice zone, its algorithms reshaping our thoughts and dreams. The masks speak to another way of being in the world, of a past and future that resist the earth’s destruction. Our pandemic garden offers sanctuary, and pause, to listen to their counsel.
tierra sin mal, 2022, photographic triptychs
ZAINUB VERJEE
Mississauga, ON
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Gardens became a mainstay through the pandemic, whether it was planting an avocado seed or reading and ruminating on gardens.
“History without gardens would be a wasteland," majestically declared Richard Harrison in his treatise Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition. “We inhabit relatively permanent worlds that precede our birth and outlast our death, binding the generations together in a historical continuum ... Work builds the world that makes us historical. The historical world in turn serves as the stage for human action, the deeds and speech from which human beings realize their potential for freedom and affirm their dignity in the radiance of the public square." I look at my avocado plant. It reminds me of this beautiful couplet penned by Allama Iqbal: 
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Why did You order me to quit the Paradise, Garden of Eden? Now there is much to be done here—so just wait for me! In simpler terms, it says that there is still so much work to be done before one can return to paradise! I have work to do and see my plant bear its avocado. They say avocado trees live for over a hundred years, bearing avocado—a symbol of love. Click to view Zainub Verjee's ECH Contributor Page |
CATHERINE VILLAR
St. Thomas, ON
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On May 27, 2020, I stepped onto our porch roof to clean an outside window and from there saw the orchids on my desk inside the house. They were all grocery store bargain plants, seemingly unsalvageable, that with consistent attention during the slow winter of 2020 became a daily source of fascination, pleasure, and even solace while the branches outside were still bare. A friend had been taking portraits of people through windows early on in the pandemic. With that in mind, I now saw these plants more fully as living beings who had accompanied us through the quiet of that winter and spring.
Catherine Villar is a musician and habitually optimistic gardener. |
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JOANNA WEIL
Leamington, ON
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In March 2020, while the world was in lockdown, I left London and Western University to go back to Leamington, Ontario, to stay with my parents as school transitioned to online learning. Once school was over, my sister Jessica and I had nothing to do—no more studying, and both of our jobs were now non-existent due to the lockdown. So, we decided what better to do than grow lettuce! Our mom was not too excited about the prospect of us digging up her backyard, but she said if we could grow lettuce in planters, then we could give it a shot. Jess and I gathered every planter our parents had hidden in the shed and got to work. The display was quite comical considering the pots we used were decorative, the type you would display fancy flowers in at your front door, but it got the job done! We were able to harvest some beautiful heads of lettuce, and it became a nightly occurrence for our family to enjoy a salad with dinner fresh from our garden. I can't count the number of salads we ate, and I wanted to share my favourite recipe with you. I like to stick with simple ingredients, and I am not one for specific measurements, so please, measure with your heart! Enjoy!
Ingredients: Salad - Lettuce(s), any type - Red cabbage, chopped up - Fennel, sliced thin on a mandolin - Cucumber, sliced thin on a mandolin - White onion, sliced thin on a mandolin Dressing - Balsamic vinegar - Olive oil - Salt - Black pepper - Garlic powder |
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STEPHANIE WHITE
Calgary, AB/Nanaimo, BC
This is a scant acre of an established garden that I inherited six years ago. Originally, in the 1940s, it had been cut out of a plot of second-growth forest, then cleared in the 1980s of invasive Himalayan blackberry and planted with fruit trees amongst the big 120-year-old firs, a cottage garden, and vegetable plot nearer the house. By the time I got it, the blackberries had re-advanced, covering the fruit trees, and the old garden part was hugely weedy, the soil depleted and suffering from the new climate it has found itself in: arid and furnace-like all summer, and drowned all winter. I’ve been making shade mostly: arbours, ground covers, lawn gone to meadow, hedges made narrower and taller, torn between an old lushness and new imperatives—a sparer landscape.
The pandemic years have seen the heat dome, two five-month droughts, fall atmospheric rivers without cease, unusual Arctic outflows—all this in what was a millennially gentle, temperate rainforest climate. Plants are suffering, native and introduced alike. The firs produce massive cone drops every year now, not just once in a while. I haven’t seen the barred owl in the woods for two years. Birds were silent under the heat dome.
My pandemic garden experience was not urban: this is a small town, I back onto a railway track, the skyline is a mountain, trees, roofs and clouds. It is said that coronaviruses are one of the results of climate change: all is in flux, our future is new weather, new viruses, new political panic, new survival skills. We just don’t know what all these will actually be. If my pandemic garden says anything to me, it is that the world is contracting, that we took openness and health for granted, crises happened elsewhere and were generally theoretical, almost always viewed on a graph or a screen. They are here in my yard now. I can’t rely on the skills I once had.
The pandemic years have seen the heat dome, two five-month droughts, fall atmospheric rivers without cease, unusual Arctic outflows—all this in what was a millennially gentle, temperate rainforest climate. Plants are suffering, native and introduced alike. The firs produce massive cone drops every year now, not just once in a while. I haven’t seen the barred owl in the woods for two years. Birds were silent under the heat dome.
My pandemic garden experience was not urban: this is a small town, I back onto a railway track, the skyline is a mountain, trees, roofs and clouds. It is said that coronaviruses are one of the results of climate change: all is in flux, our future is new weather, new viruses, new political panic, new survival skills. We just don’t know what all these will actually be. If my pandemic garden says anything to me, it is that the world is contracting, that we took openness and health for granted, crises happened elsewhere and were generally theoretical, almost always viewed on a graph or a screen. They are here in my yard now. I can’t rely on the skills I once had.
Nanaimo BC, 2021
Stephanie White worked as an architect in Calgary at the end of the second oil boom, taught architecture in several USA and Canadian universities, and has a PhD in urban geography. She edits and publishes On Site Review, a Canadian magazine about architecture and urbanism.
RYAN WHYTE
Toronto, ON
On a fifth-floor terrace in downtown Toronto, my partner and I maintain a small container garden in which we grow food for ourselves and catnip for our cat. The garden attracts pollinators. Although I began to photograph and document insect visitors to our garden two years before the pandemic began, the confinement of the last two summers has made this hobby more poignant, and not only as a means of escape to a small slice of nature just outside our door. For pollinators, there is no pandemic, their freedom of movement a measure of the independence of nature from human constraints. Therefore, in proportion to the evaporation of my ability to travel, to move about the city, to see friends and loved ones, my desire to document and understand the pollinators who visited our garden grew into an obsession. In the proportion that work and human contact flattened into the endless grind of the screen, my desire for a kind of intimate knowledge of the lives and loves of pollinators grew. The gift of the pandemic was a restructuring of my life around the rhythms of insects and plants.
Although in the past I had primarily observed and photographed bees, during the pandemic I fell in love with syrphid flies (family Syrphidae), also called flower flies or hoverflies. The importance of syrphid flies as pollinators is under-appreciated due to the public and commercial focus on honeybees and bumble bees. In syrphid flies, I wanted to better understand an aspect of nature more marginal to human attention and agency—yet right in our midst—in a moment when human-imposed constraints seem to determine every aspect of our lives. I discovered that unlike bees, who largely fly from midday, syrphid flies appear in the calm and quiet of early morning. My love for syrphid flies imposed a new structure and purpose on the formlessness of pandemic time: my days began with a syrphid hunt.
Although in the past I had primarily observed and photographed bees, during the pandemic I fell in love with syrphid flies (family Syrphidae), also called flower flies or hoverflies. The importance of syrphid flies as pollinators is under-appreciated due to the public and commercial focus on honeybees and bumble bees. In syrphid flies, I wanted to better understand an aspect of nature more marginal to human attention and agency—yet right in our midst—in a moment when human-imposed constraints seem to determine every aspect of our lives. I discovered that unlike bees, who largely fly from midday, syrphid flies appear in the calm and quiet of early morning. My love for syrphid flies imposed a new structure and purpose on the formlessness of pandemic time: my days began with a syrphid hunt.
Margined Calligrapher (Toxomerus marginatus) on Catnip, 2021
My photo depicts a common species of syrphid fly in Toronto, a Margined Calligrapher (Toxomerus marginatus), feeding on a catnip blossom, photographed in our garden on July 12, 2021.
Ryan Whyte is an art historian and artist. He is an associate professor and chair of the BA honours program in visual and critical studies at OCAD University, Toronto.
JADE WILLIAMSON
Dorchester, ON
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As I continue to work with and research endangered species, I have started to view my surroundings differently. While battling the ups and downs of each stage and zone of lockdown, art became the only consistent aspect of my life. I started to draw inspiration from the species that would visit my backyard or the blue herons I photographed at the nearby pond. My interest in the local species evolved into a focus on Canadian endangered species in my practice.
This piece, entitled Dancing Feathers, is a rendering of a whooping crane doing the “crane dance.” The original flocks of whooping cranes nest on the Alberta-Northwest Territories border in Wood Buffalo National Park. This piece serves as a reminder of how beautiful nature is and how it surrounds us. Its stark white presence contrasted against the black symbolizes hope amidst its lurking extinction. My experience illustrating local wildlife reminded me why I began working with endangered species in my practice. My “garden” experience inspired me to continue raising awareness for at-risk wildlife and to focus on Canadian species. |
Dancing Feathers, 2021
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WINSOM WINSOM
Pickering, ON / Belize
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During the Covid lockdown, my garden has been the recipient of my green thumb and extra TLC. In 2020, the first year of Covid, my young jackfruit tree bore fruits for the first time but none came to fruition. In the second year of Covid lockdown, the tree started to bear too many fruits, so I decided to leave only three to reach maturity, as the plant energy would concentrate on making those three the best. As it was dry season, I had to make sure the tree got watered every day, as the temperature went up to forty-five degrees Celsius most days, risking drought conditions and the fruit falling off. One of my three little fruits dried up and fell off and I was left with two.
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Finally, after weeks of observation and nurturing, it was time to pick the jackfruit and sit down to a plate of luscious, mouth-watering fruit. The wait was well worth it as I put the first peg to my mouth, allowing every taste bud to experience the taste. After indulging in the first few glorious mouthfuls, guilt gripped me as I thought about the toucan who had also patiently waited to indulge.
I made my way back to the tree and left a small bowl of fruit, thinking there is enough for both of us. ENJOY.
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As I looked out the window, there was the toucan looking longingly, as its eyes followed me into the house.
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BH YAEL
Toronto, ON
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Pandemic Projections
OR Existential Migrant OR Travelling the expanse of the known world without doing harm OR Phenomenological joy OR Peripatetic longings OR (Home) (Less)(Nest) OR Escaping Consumption OR Against despair OR It’s a wonderful life OR On the lam, on the land OR Emergence OR….. 
b. h. Yael is a filmmaker, video and installation artist, and activist. She is professor of integrated media at OCAD University. Yael's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. b.h Yael: Family States, a book edited by Mike Hoolboom, was published by Conversalon in 2021.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The organizers, Ron Benner and Rachel MacGillivray, express their sincere thanks to JoAnna Weil, contributing editor; Olivia Mossuto, coordinating editor; and Jamelie Hasssan, co-founder and curatorial advisor for the Embassy Cultural House, for making this online exhibition possible. ECH thanks the Connexion Artist-Run Centre, Fredericton, NB, for initially bringing these two artists together through the mentorship program of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ottawa.
Our gratitude to the Department of Visual Arts at Western University, for its ongoing support through its internship program, and all of the ECH's Cloud to Street community partners: Colour by Schubert, Jill's Table, The Framing & Art Centre, and Brown & Dickson Bookstore.
A special thanks to Tariq Hassan Gordon, co-founder and coordinating editor of the Embassy Cultural House website, for his invaluable cultural diplomacy and angel investment in this project.
All of the contributors to Pandemic Gardens have collectively made these past months more life-affirming, and ECH thanks them for their responses through the contribution of images and texts. The insights that they have shared exemplify, in so many ways, how “resilience through nature" has been central to our survival.
Our gratitude to the Department of Visual Arts at Western University, for its ongoing support through its internship program, and all of the ECH's Cloud to Street community partners: Colour by Schubert, Jill's Table, The Framing & Art Centre, and Brown & Dickson Bookstore.
A special thanks to Tariq Hassan Gordon, co-founder and coordinating editor of the Embassy Cultural House website, for his invaluable cultural diplomacy and angel investment in this project.
All of the contributors to Pandemic Gardens have collectively made these past months more life-affirming, and ECH thanks them for their responses through the contribution of images and texts. The insights that they have shared exemplify, in so many ways, how “resilience through nature" has been central to our survival.
CLOUD TO STREET
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The Cloud to Street initiative began on Earth Day 2021 with Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth, an Embassy Cultural House exhibition in collaboration with GardenShip & State, a project curated by Patrick Mahon and Jeff Thomas. Tariq Hassan Gordon, the ECH's coordinating editor, came up with the idea as a way for the public to safely engage with contemporary art while also enhancing our connections with our local partners and independent businesses. Through this initiative, the ECH has highlighted artworks with Colour by Schubert, Jill's Table, Brown and Dickson Bookstore, and The Framing and Art Centre, which address different thematic exhibitions. The artwork is installed in each storefront for an extended period in relation to the ECH's online exhibitions.
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