PAUL CHARTRAND

Paul engages with environmental issues through the construction of sculptural life support apparatuses populated with living plants. He repurposes objects and cultural signifiers like language to act as habitats and conceptual support systems. Doing this subverts and re-contextualizes them as players in functioning ecosystems. Currently he is focused on living text installations, hydroponic assemblages and interdisciplinary drawing practices. The plants and other natural elements that Paul involves all have agency of their own; manifested through their power to change the appearance and effect of the work. Often the projects are dispersed through viewer participation that includes planting, conserving, reading and physical consumption. By working with plants, it is Paul’s intention to meaningfully engage with their agency as well as their relationships with humans past, present and future. Please visit his Website.

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Earth Day 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

Artist Statement: Seeded Clay brings together communities to create a memorial to land defenders and environmentalists killed protecting the more-than-human. This collaborative work is led by artists Paul Chartrand and Michelle Wilson. When completed, this memorial will comprise a chain of over 700 open links formed from clay harvested near rivers in Southern Ontario.  Each link in the chain will carry one name and have seeds mixed into the clay body.

Produced through ongoing workshops, participants will assist in collecting clay, forming links and etching names. We will disseminate the unfired clay and seed links amongst visitors to take home and return to the earth during the closing of this work's exhibition.

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Recent work by Paul

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