Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

EARTH DAY 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth

The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) and GardenShip and State are pleased to present a virtual group exhibition Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth to celebrate Earth Day, April 22, 2021. Work in the exhibit features artists from within the ECH community and Gardenship and State participating artists. Artworks in the exhibit address the broad issues related to the climate crisis, and other threats to our ecology. Works also address the intersection of sustainable living and the respect for Indigenous land rights.

Background:

Established in 1983, the Embassy Cultural House (ECH) was a community-driven gallery and hosted interdisciplinary programs. It closed its physical doors in 1990. In 2020 the ECH was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and community website.
GardenShip and State, 2019-2021, is an exciting project that includes as participants ECH co-founders, Ron Benner and Jamelie Hassan. This interdisciplinary research project is co-curated by award-winning artists/educators/activists, Patrick Mahon and Jeff Thomas. An exhibition related to GardenShip research and workshops will be presented at Museum London and other locations throughout the city of London in September 2021.

JESSIE AMERY

Jessie Amery, "Let’s Give Them Something to Squawk About", 2000

Jessie Amery, Pandemonium: Let’s Give Them Something to Squawk About, 2000

Medium: Book cover and binding hand-embroidered with cotton and silk threads, on printed cotton fabric, embellished with glass and pottery beads; journal pages white linen

A workshop on bookbinding provided me with two things, an opportunity to learn something new and another place to put a stitch. It felt natural to use fabric and stitches to create an embroidered cover for this hand-bound book. The brightly coloured fabric seemed to call out to me with a kind of boldness that demanded I embellish it with French knots, satin stitch, fly stitch and straight stitches to bring the parrots and their habitat to life. The embroidered cover tells a story, before you open the book, stimulating the senses. The word used to describe a flock of parrots is “Pandemonium”. In looking at my embroidered flock, it is easy for me to imagine being in the Amazon rainforest, listening to them squawking as I inhale the floral scents and am captivated by all the different colours. What we may not see until we take the time to look further beyond the embroidery, given disappearing habitat, poaching and the climate crisis, is that today more than half of the Amazon parrots are under threat. The earth is a beautiful place to live. We need to conserve, protect and restore natural habitats so future generations can stitch their own images of the pandemonium.

RON BENNER

Ron Benner, "Remains in association with...", digital colour print, 2021

Ron Benner, Remains in association with..., 2021

The dried grains, seeds and vegetables in the photograph are from Asia, Africa, Southern Europe and the Americas: rice, sorghum, chickpeas, lentils, chili peppers, beans, maize, etc. representing a biodiversity reaching back in time to when humans first began to farm wild plants about 10,000 years ago. The cultural deposits, ceramic and glass shards, were found in the soils of Iraq, Jordan, Mexico, and Turtle Island/Canada by myself, Jamelie Hassan and William Kingfisher. As cultures have disappeared so have many of the plant varieties that sustained them for thousands of years. The loss of biodiversity affects us all.

PAUL CHARTRAND & MICHELLE WILSON

Paul Chartrand & Michelle Wilson, Seeded Clay, 2021

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.

Paul Chartrand and Michelle Wilson, "Seeded Clay: A Community Memorial", 2021- , Video documentation of an ongoing process

CAROLE CONDE + KARL BEVERIDGE

Carole Condé + Karl Beveridge, "Futures", photographic triptych, 2013

Carole Condé + Karl Beveridge, Futures, 2013

It increasingly appears that humankind is facing a stark choice: continue as we are and we will perish, or change the way we live and hopefully survive as a species. Underlying 'living as we are' is the destructive logic of capitalist growth. Profit invariably depends on growth, a growth that nature (let alone humans) can no longer sustain. Futures portrays the present day rape of nature by corporate interests. Two flanking images portray a future dystopia and utopia. Set in a mall, the same characters appear in all three images and represent various corporate, political, and social interests. A young girl is the narrative witness. The work loosely references European altar paintings, often titled 'Day of Judgment' of the 14th and 15th centuries.

STEPHEN CRUISE

Stephen Cruise, "barque", Digital print 19” x 13”, Archival inks/paper, 2018 – 2021

Stephen Cruise, barque, 2018-2021

Handmade tribute to one cherished.
Dream the creation and moment dearly planted.
Now stranded having been witness to change at sea.
Once with sail and now forsaken

Location:
Cristobal de Colon Cemetery, La Habana, Cuba.

TOM CULL

Tom Cull, Treaty 45 ½ *, Point Clark, 2020

Contend with 10,000 years--
the lake once so low a land bridge stretched
from here to Alpena. Boulders drowned
by rising waters mark places paleo hunters
corralled caribou, crossed from the north,
stepped onto this beach throwing
loops of time and relation forward.

Now the beaches waterlogged
to nearly gone. A red balloon snarls
in tree roots lapped by the surf.
Waves paint dull stones, churn
froth, broken shells, cigarette butts.
I find a green plastic figure.
Headdress, bare-chested, moccasins,
expressionless, “made in China.”

In another handful of sand, an empty cap-gun cartridge,
the kind we bought as kids. Flashing badge, quick draw,
we laid down the law and reloaded. Killed each other
before lunch in a clap of sulfur and smoke.

My rural ruins: crop tours, mineral moonlight,
smelt runs, beached sturgeon.
July bonfires burned our school notes--
other histories and geographies. Ours,
the bored drone of Upper and Lower Canada.
Wolfe and Montcalm lulled us into daily disremembering.
Sitting high in a tractor cab blasting country,
hydraulics and steel turning the soil below.

When headlines hit—Oka, Ipperwash--
we gathered up the silence we had planted,
and stuffed our ears with seeds.
Each spring, the frost shouldered up stones
we loaded onto wagons and dumped in the swamp.

Somewhere thousands of feet under the lake
massive machines claw at walls of salt.
No end to what we’ll dig up,
what we’ll try to bury.
The land breaks through the map of it.

It’s all here, caught between the call and response
of sand bar and dune. I want to wait here
until the sturgeon return, smelt run, plovers brood--
until I am blasted into beach glass.

Point Clark, 2020

* See David D. Plain’s A Brief History of the Saugeen Peninsula. The great influx of European settlers in the 1800s resulted in the government of Upper Canada putting intense pressure on Saugeen Ojibwa peoples to surrender their territories. The Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Frances Bond Head, had his sights set on 1.5 million hectares of land that ran from the Saugeen River south to the border of the Huron Tract (at present day Goderich). He secured this surrender by suggesting that settler encroachment onto Ojibwa land could not be stopped (he had every power to prevent this incursion), and that if the Ojibwa surrendered this land, he would guarantee the entire Bruce Peninsula could become Ojibwa sovereign territory. Plain outlines Bond’s methods of coercion and cajolement that led to the signing of this treaty. The treaty was also illegal as it contravened the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Soon after the signing of Treaty 45½, the Upper Canada government began work to secure lands on the Bruce Peninsula that had been promised to the Ojibwa. For over 20 years, the Saugeen Ojibwe Nation (SON) has worked to bring a land claim to trial. SON is seeking justice for breaches of their treaty rights by multiple levels of government. The claim is currently before the Ontario court.

SUSAN DAY

Susan Day, "Staring at the Parched Earth", Ceramic tile, 2011

Susan Day, Staring at the Parched Earth, 2011

Staring at the Parched Earth is a response to a dream I had after immersing myself in news feeds about the California wildfires. I was opening my awareness of the devastation these fires were causing to the land , the animals, and the humans. This image played like a loop in my mind. Every year fires, often started by lightning or by a carelessly tossed still lit- cigarette, devastate millions of acres of land.

EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC UNIT

LAND SEA SKY (for Raj Sen) by Experimental Music Unit from Paul Walde on Vimeo.

Land Sea Sky, Played by the Experimental Music Unit from a text score by Tina Pearson

LAND SEA SKY is a text score written for the Experimental Music Unit. It reflects the trio’s relationships of listening and playing closely together through 10 years and multiple collaborative projects, and its increasing focus on land-based artmaking, including Biospheric Art Practice. During the composition of the piece, EMU friend and colleague Raj Sen, director of Victoria’s Open Space, passed away. Raj’s remarkable and generous spirit inspired the final version of the piece, which is dedicated to him.

Biospheric Art Practice is an art-in-the-environment practice that intends a respectful listening interaction with the biosphere, embodying a sensual and perceptual awareness of its complex lifeforms, and its human and other ancestries. It was initiated by Tina Pearson in 2015 in Lekwungen territory (Greater Victoria, Canada) and operated there with Tzanetakis, dance artist Lori Hamar and photographer/videographer Kirk Schwartz with invited and accidental guests. The practice utilizes specific modes of listening within a location’s biosphere as a guide to sounding, moving, photographing and filming - interacting artistically in a non-performance, non-product way.

The practice has developed through guided aural suggestion, listening, sounding and movement exercises and meditations, and text scores. It shares some elements with acoustic ecology, field recording & soundscape composition; the study of attention in Deep Listening® practice; and the focus of slow movement and environmental listening of soundwalking.

The video of Land Sea Sky included in the Embassy Cultural House Earth Day exhibition is an audio and photographic representation of EMU’s realization of the score at Finnerty Cove on the Salish Sea, on March 3, 2021. Each musician recorded their own audio track, which were mixed by Paul Walde in a video production incorporating a photographic realization of the score by Lyssa Pearson.

MICHAEL FARNAN

Dance for the Narrows_for exhibition. from Michael Farnan on Vimeo.

Michael Farnan, N2N: Widening the Narrows, 2015

Originally created for the 2015 exhibition N2N: Widening the Narrows at the Orillia Museum of Art and Art History. The exhibition was curated by Matt McIntosh and Wanda Nanibush. Group show with Michael Belmore, Nadia Myre, Travis Shilling, and Osvaldo Yero.

MICHAEL FERNANDES

Michael Fernandes, "not taking it personally don’t take it for granted", iPhone image, 2021

Michael Fernandes, not taking it personally don’t take it for granted, 2021

freedom subjugation domestication
utilization and exploitation all wrapped in one attempt to amphora-mix.

KERRY FERRIS (1949 - 2016)

kerry ferris (1949 - 2016), butterfly's long green journey, 1997

kerry ferris painted landscapes, portraits, and wildlife for over 40 years. This painting is about the journey of the monarch butterfly from south-western Ontario to central Mexico which occurs every year in the autumn. All butterflies and bees are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, pesticides, and herbicides.

kerry ferris, "butterfly's long green journey", acrylic, 1997

JAN FIGURSKI

Jan Figurski, Summer Solstice Vigil, 2021

by three in the morning
on the second storey roof
everything is coincident
a point of departure
moments relive themselves
shifting into new shapes
like dancers unwinding in the mind
this solstice morning
the tumid ground breathes
giving the day’s heat up
trees sigh, silhouetted
black branches swaying
and to eyes, unaccustomed
to such dim light
any definition
slowly softens, blurs
becomes dark shapes cast
into moonlit grey
and night becomes hands
carving supple rhythms
out of dark green wood
dancing until daylight
sucks the breath away
coaxing songs
out of hungry birds
© Jan Figurski

MIREYA FOLCH-SERRA

Mireya Folch-Serra, Bird Friendly, 2015
This piece represents a place that is green, lush and bird-friendly. The bird is undisturbed and tranquil. But did you know that 25 million birds – including 23 bird species are at risk— die in Canada from crashing into windows each year? Knowing this may allow us to create a good environment for migrating birds.

Mireya Folch-Serra, "Bird Friendly", acrylic on canvas, 2015

FATIMA GARZAN

Fatima Garzan, "Secret Garden – Orange", woodcut printed on four layers of fabrics and stitching, 2005

Fatima Garzan, Secret Garden – Orange, 2005

The Allegorical Garden
It is a spot beyond imagination, delighted to the heart
Where roses bloom, and sparkling fountains murmur
Where the earth is rich with many-coloured flowers
And musk floats on the gentle breezes
Hyacinths and lilies add their perfume
Golden fruits weigh down the branches of the lofty trees

Shahnameh, Ferdowsi, Persian poet 935-1020 A.D translated by James Atkinson

The Secret Garden series is inspired by “Shahnameh” (The Book of Kings). One thousand years ago, with his poetic sentiments, Ferdowsi spoke about the beauty of nature: trees, flowers, clean air, fresh water, and fertile soil. All of which are highly debated and relevant topics in today’s world.

The Secret Garden is about a hidden world of emotions, thoughts, memories and dreams. It represents an image of ‘pardis’, the Persian word for paradise and a place of great happiness and heavenly beauty. With stylised form and embedded repetitions, the Secret Garden evokes meditative awareness. It provides pathways for contemplation and reflection and reminds us that we are the guardians of the Earth. We have a responsibility to take care of our planet and to raise our voices for environmental justice. We need to spread climate literacy and live a sustainable life to save our beautiful home in the universe for many generations to come.

DAVE GORDON

Dave Gordon, "Moby Dick Cloud over the Toronto Skyline", 2015

Dave Gordon, Moby Dick Cloud Over The Toronto Skyline, 2015

The novel "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville tells the story of Moby Dick the white whale, and his obsessed pursuer Ahab, captain of the whaling ship the Pequod. An American classic, it is both a ripping tale of adventure, and a cautionary allegory of humanity’s hubris and nature’s revenge. Moby Dick Cloud over the Toronto Skyline conflates the fictional whale with Climate Change - storms, floods (also fires, drought, desertification, extinction of species, mass migration etc). The novel was inspired by a real event - the sinking of the whaler Essex by a whale in 1820. The crew of the Essex had previously plundered a small island of its tortoises and then set it on fire, resulting in the extinction of the Floreana tortoise and the Floreana mockingbird. After their ship was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale, the fate of the crew - adrift for 89 days, starvation, cannibalism - makes a grim case for Cosmic Karma. Humanity, take note.

Childhood drawing of Moby Dick by Dave's son and ECH editor Tariq Hassan Gordon (circa 1983).

JOAN GREER, SOURAYAN MOOKERJEA & TEGAN MOORE

Tegan Moore, Joan Greer, Sourayan Mookerjea, Inverse Insulations in a Seed Time Poem Cycle, Digital Video, 8 minutes, 2020

Seed Time enables us to think of the human and more-than-human body ecologically, as process in the web of life. In this iteration, the nucleic video-poem cycle of Seed Time holds traces of a former embodied and intermedia whole. Seed time is composed of memory-storage, dispersal, pyriscence, imbibition, respiration, light, mobilization, sprouting, growth, and regeneration through which negentropic common-being creates a place for Earth-bound lifetimes, giving wisdom, taking care and creating common wealth. Past, present and future non-extractivist seed-communication points towards deep energy transitions to slow futures. The possibility for delinking from the toxic waste economy may be searched for here.

This work was produced as part of Speculative Energy Futures, a collaborative, research-creation project that brings together artists, activists, scientists, engineers, policy makers, and social science and energy humanities researchers to investigate the challenges and potentials of energy transition.

JAMELIE HASSAN

Jamelie Hassan, "Solar Power", triptych, watercolour on paper in maple frames, 2005/2006/2019

Jamelie Hassan, Solar Power, 2005/2006/2019

This watercolour is from my series about the solar lamp motif and its use in our garden which I painted from 2005/06. In 2019, I cut this watercolour into 3 panels which Ron Benner framed in the maple frame as a triptych. Sarah White at The Framing and Art Centre had given Ron two of the maple frames that had been ordered by one of her customers. It happened that there was an error in the measurements when the frames were constructed. Knowing that both Ron and I liked this maple frame, Sarah gave the frames to Ron. I had done this series of watercolours but was not happy with some parts of this particular work. Nevertheless, I kept it for more than 10 years, unframed and deep in my works on paper storage bureau. Rather than tearing it up, I considered that by making the work into a triptych that it might be salvagable. The recycling of these frames created an opportunity to view this watercolour in a fresh and more effective way.

FERN HELFAND

Fern Helfand, At the Edge of a Clear Cut, 2021
Animated photographs, mp4. Duration: 1:00 Min

Animation: Fern Helfand.
Sound: David McFarlane - Excerpts from “You Always”, from the album: “Fieldwork”. www.mcfarlanemusic.com

At the Edge of a Clear Cut not only represents the threatening times that are upon us in the regions of the world where unsustainable forestry practices have affected the environment and climate, but in general, refers to all of humankind’s activities where we are at the edge of forever upsetting the balance of nature resulting in an unstoppable escalation of devastating storms, floods, forest fires and climactic disasters.

I chose the vertical Instagram/Facebook story format for my animation to intricately link it to our time in history.

LISA HIRMER

Lisa Hirmer, "Emergency Signal", photograph, 2018

Lisa Hirmer, Emergency Signal, 2018

We—by which I mean everything living on this planet—are in an emergency. This was true before the COVID-19 pandemic began and it will be true after it ends. And as long as climate change puts the planet’s capacity to support life at risk, we will be in an emergency. As a generation who is unlikely to see its end, I’ve been working to make sense of what it means to be living life inside an emergency of this scale.

Unlike emergencies that are self-evident—floods, fires, earthquakes, as we now know dangerous viruses—climate change has arrived slowly, is hard to see, and is felt differently by different people. Naming this emergency for what it is is a way to start seeing it more clearly. Building emergency signals for climate change is about keeping its urgency present.

SHARMISTHA KAR

Sharmistha Kar, "Soft Shelter-Tabernacles and the river", Bunka, hand embroidery on layered fabric, 31 x 23 cm, 2020

Detail, "Soft Shelter-Tabernacles and the river"

Sharmistha Kar, Soft Shelter-Tabernacles and the river, 2020

The work, titled Soft Shelter-Tabernacles and the river, focuses on the Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River and also known as the Thames River) in London, Ontario. Rivers are fundamental to human society because it was in river valleys and deltas that the first great civilizations were found around agriculture. I see the Deshkan Ziibi almost every day, especially when crossing one of the many bridges that span it. I am always fascinated that the human structures around rivers depend on the river as a life source. The rivers, however, are organic and take different shapes at different times, regardless of the human societies developing around them. I am aware of and sincerely appreciate the active ongoing project to maintain the Deshkan Ziibi's well-being in London, Ontario. This particular work reflects the idea of growth, mobility, personhood in nature and culture from an individual experience.

MARK KASUMOVIC

Mark Kasumovic, " Vault #3" [From series: A Human Laboratory], Photography, 2015

Mark Kasumovic, Vault #3 [From series: A Human Laboratory], 2015

Using extensive links with the international scientific community, A Human Laboratory explores the settings of many of the most significant and mysterious scientific experiments happening around the world. From a seed storage vault tucked away in polar Svalbard, to the remote Experimental Lakes Area hidden within rural Canada, this body of work focuses on the great variety of sites and apparatus’ that we collectively use to understand our contemporary world. Focusing on experiments whose outcomes are often not predetermined nor fully understood, it invites viewers to consider the ramifications of such discoveries as quantum communication, genetic engineering and particle physics. It also raises questions concerning the role of conservation and preservation within the act of discovery.

Apart from the beauty of such intricate man-made spaces, the photographs in this body of work also seek to question the inherent relationships between the apparatus of scientific inquiry and the humble photographic camera. As spaces such as laboratories become more visually cryptic with the onset of advanced and often invisible technologies, the camera can highlight a new burden of photographic representation: the difficulty all instruments of knowledge production have in representing some of the world’s most hidden phenomena. It can also entice thoughtful reflection upon how reliant we are on the function of images; how intermingled images are within the culture of knowledge production, and how relationships can be constructed if the two are analyzed in tandem.

Vault #3 was a photograph taken at the Global Seed Vault embedded within a massive arctic cliff in polar Svalbard. The seed vault was constructed in 2008 to house “spare” copies of seeds held within international gene banks to avoid the loss of native species during a regional or global crisis. Most photographs representing the seed vault focus on the stunning landscape surrounding its entrance; the frozen doors that need to be thawed to access the vault’s interior; or perhaps Vault #1, which was rapidly filling to capacity during my initial visit. Vault #3, however, was empty and quiet. It provided a peaceful space to contemplate the long journey every seed has made to wait together, quietly, to be called to action.

BRIAN LAMBERT

Meadowlily from Brian Lambert on Vimeo.

Brian Lambert, Meadowlily, 2020

Meadowlily celebrates the beauty of one of London’s most prized natural areas, Meadowlily Woods. It is meant to call attention to a staff recommendation at London City Hall to pass a proposal by developers to build 88 condominium units adjacent to this truly unique and highly sensitive natural area. A soundtrack by Nach Dem Tode accompanies the video, shot in the spring of 2020.

THE LAST COCHINEAL

The Last Cochineal (Holly English + Olivia Mossuto), POUR ME CARBON, I'M FROM HERE, 2021

When the comet body (any body) is ice, and subsequently gas, we are referencing the ecological succession of all things - the circularity and ultimate efficiency of what it means to be earthly and made out of carbon. As the body floats through space, its adaptation to the environment is inimical to its survival. The narrator muses on earthy relationships, realizing how perfectly adapted they are to our planet. Painterly comets and talk of minerals remind us that circularity is not limited to our familiars.

In space, in the deep sea, we are reminded of such limits in extremity. We are also reminded of the trade-off for sentience and language, as our skin can only stretch so far, withstand so many degrees of fluctuation. As the human body drifts, a physical and mental homesickness encroaches. The fleshiness of this new adaptation, counter to soul-survival offers a new cognizance of our planetary system as familial/renounced.

This zine was produced in response to the theme 'soft tissue.'

PATRICK MAHON

Patrick Mahon, "Nonsuch Garden Wall Panel" (Fence with Sail), digital photo collage with wood veneer on panel, 2015

Patrick Mahon, Nonsuch Garden Wall Panel (Fence with Sail), 2015

With my project, Nonsuch Garden (2015), I was interested in proposing a domain that recognizes a freighted colonial past (and present), emblematized by references to a ship, while simultaneously suggesting the possibility of a future that acknowledges its embeddedness in and accountability to history. Charting multiple trajectories that propose a decolonial critique, while invoking horticultural and environmental issues past and present, Nonsuch Garden trades on the remembered and the imagined. It is, fundamentally, my poetic assertion concerning a contemporary moment of transition and urgent challenge when, I believe, generativity is still possible. Nonsuch Garden Wall Panel (Fence and Sail) is a printed and collaged wood panel that is meant as a detailed window onto a world that stitches photographs of small urban gardens together with close-ups of aspects of the sail of a replica ship. The ‘scrap of garden’ is presented as a highly coloured, digitally manipulated dot pattern printed directly onto plywood and veneer, to suggest a site of excavation and adaptation.

Skylar Mohacsy

The snow falls,
The silence draws,
The sirens begin,
The violence sprawls,
The fire grows,
It spreads,
Like static,
It goes fast,
It ends slow,
As if time is on our backs,
And we can’t stop it now,
The wind breaks, the days end,
The rotted leaves fall, the garbage scattered, polluting lungs here and there.

KIM MOODIE

Kim Moodie, Gold Ground, 1998

I used to read some science fiction. Often, the stories involved the colonization and subsequent cultivation and mining of other planets. Violence, either direct or subliminal, was a means to achieve settlers’ goals. It has been theorized that narratives of Western culture. particularly traditional fantasy stories, have been used to present hierarchies of value systems that stress who gets to own what, and why. Science fiction can project the future. In this painting the ground is gold and anthropomorphized creatures move across it, mythical in their being, like Gods of old or contemporary super- heroes and villains. A spaceman, spaceship, and rockets move into the sky. Red veins move through ground and sky. A narrative continues.

Kim Moodie, "Gold Ground", Acrylic and oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in, 1998

CATHERINE MORRISEY

Catherine Morrisey, "Geese and Goslings", oil on canvas, 2020

Catherine Morrisey, Geese and Goslings, 2020

Early in April the geese start looking for a patch of shoreline to make a nest and lay their eggs. Yesterday I disturbed a pair that were trying out a nice spot in the sun. That spot also happens to be the boat launch for kayakers. Reluctantly they got up and paddled away to a quieter spot. The river is 10,000 years old, and the geese have been nesting here every April for thousands of years.

TROY OUELLETTE

Troy Ouellette, "Destroyer/Creator" (Voluminous Trace Series). Photogram. 16"x20", 2009

Troy Ouellette, Destroyer/Creator (Voluminous Trace Series), 2009

In these works the ghost-like spectral force of the image is emphasized in two ways, the first deals with the unrealized aspect of repurposing military technologies for real future ecological needs the second is the fossilized trace of outdated modes of thinking. In this case militarism, as such, may be equated with a failure to consider the wider sphere of biological life.

The initial pop bottle plastic models, used to create the photograms, were constructed to mimic the process of using repurposed military technologies. Just as Spitfires and other planes were used after WW2 as crop dusters or civilian ocean liners became hospital ships these models shift the mode of operation. By reimagining the destroyer as an instrument for cleaning the Pacific Gyre, I attempt to create something that proposes new productive uses for technology. When I am working on these images I am conjuring military X-rayed “specimens” and the detritus of our present surge of petrol-chemical production.

JILL PRICE

Jill Price, UNLEASHED, 2021
35:05-minute video recorded and performed by the artist.

Continuing to investigate my role as an artist in times of truth and reconciliation and deep ecological crisis, Unleashed is a durational performance in which I carefully set free the skin and fur of a rabbit from the form of a human hat in order to point to the liveliness and vitalness of different species. Informed by the historical research that outlines how rabbits in Britain were often only hunted for sport and entertainment as their meat was considered undesirable to the upper class, this work signifies my desire to unmake myself from perspectives, processes and consumption that prioritizes the accumulation, adornment and entertainment of humans over the life and well-being of the elemental commons (soil, water, air) and more-than-human beings.

One of many practice-led investigations researching how unmaking can help us partially undo anthropogenic views, values and aesthetics first introduced by Europeans exploring, trading, colonizing and settling North America, Unleashed materially speaks back to the economic imperialism of the early North Atlantic fur trade and how we can see this exploitation of animals iterated in industrial fur farms and the ongoing global displacement and extinction of species and their natural habitats today. Unleashed is also currently on exhibit as part of a larger installation at the Orillia Art and Historical Museum entitled UNFURLED: Unsettling the Archive From a More-Than-Human Perspective.

JUDITH RODGER

Judith Rodger, "Turtles on the Brink, Deshkan Zibi", digital photograph, 2017

Judith Rodger, Turtles on the Brink, Deshkan Zibi, 2017

An Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle shares a log in central London, Ontario with two Northern Map Turtles, all three at risk. I have been working for over twenty years to preserve biodiversity in Southwestern Ontario, where wildlife and habitat are the most diverse, but also under the greatest threat in Canada.

KIAN SAADANI-GORDON

Kian Saadani-Gordon, "Up in Smoke", graphic animation, 2021

Kian Saadani-Gordon, Up in Smoke, 2021

The earth is spinning thanks to technology, and factories and all that, but because we only look at the short term, we don't notice that the pollution is destroying the earth, and our planet is up in smoke.

NILOUFAR SALIMI & MOHAMMAD TABESH

Niloufar Salimi & Mohamad Tabesh, The last leaf, Stoneware, 22.5" x 36", 2021

Niloufar Salimi & Mohamad Tabesh, The last leaf, Stoneware, 2021

In the solitude of 2020, Niloufar Salimi found herself at her third floor apartment window drawing the branches of the old, wild apple trees that she passed every day and never really saw. As autumn began and the leaves fell, a memory of reading The Last Leaf, the O. Henry short story, returned to her. She had read the story in Farsi translation as a child, a few years after the Iran-Iraq war. Every now and then, thoughts of Shiraz, her hometown, mixed with the apple branches, so that the past was present, visible before her.

The Last Leaf is a collaboration with Mohammad Tabesh. One of Salimi’s branches, its last, pale yellow leaf, not yet fallen, appears within Tabesh’s rendering of a traditional Iranian tile pattern. In Farsi, Shamseh – Sun – is the term for the eight-pointed form that is the basis of many tile patterns. Tabesh’s panel refers to museum displays of ceramic tiles where only extent tiles are displayed, like The Met’s 13th century, Panel Composed With Tiles in the Shape of Eight-pointed Stars and Crosses. But here, what’s missing is central.
Salimi and Tabesh’s strategy of absence invokes a certain intricate relationship between history and memory. The wild apple branch draws the seasons into play, ephemeral and cosmic.

JAYCE SALLOUM

Jayce Salloum, "cross~~roads~~oceans-intersections/ality", digital photograph, 2021

cross~~roads~~oceans-intersections/ality, I noticed the continuity of concepts where first expressed with the photo of Karine and Kairo at a farm field in Tcil'Qe'uk (valley of many streams, aka Chilliwack) - being here, this place, a place of sharing caring learning belonging, the teaching, acquisition of.. parsing passing knowledge - where Kairo is being passed/fed berries, a passage of knowledge metaphorically speaking - in a rural ‘Canadian’, cultivation settlersetting.. there is something there (in that picture/that world relating directly to the outside of it) that I think is truly revealing but maybe only I’m seeing it or it needs to be teased out more; a form, the need for and of intersectionality in all that we do or think about making change, our colonial state, the institutionalized destruction of all it its wake, the racism all around, “epistemic” <> systematic <> institutionalized <> individual; ignorance is no excuse - seeing/seething/seizing our climate disaster with shattering - I’m so scattered.. shattered - the disappearing polar ice cap fly/overview, somewhere over the northern waters, my carbon footprint contributing to the demise.. for the purposes of what, living a rich life, a privileged existence, the privilege of ignorance, from here to there and somewhat back again.. At what cost and for those that we love, those that follow in (hopefully) more radical forms than we were able to muster. From: construction of knowledge, its acquisition, passing purpose, out in the landscape, methodologies’ discontent, April 16, 2021

JENNA ROSE SANDS

Jenna Rose Sands, "All Mothers", Paint and ink on wood, 4.75”x6.75”, 2021

Jenna Rose Sands, All Mothers, 2021

When I think of our planet, our climate crisis and the destruction upon the ground, I think of our Mother Earth and her pain. The health of the earth is the health of our Mother. The violation of her body mimics the violation of so many Indigenous mothers. I cannot separate Motherhood from this discussion. I cannot ignore the correlation between the destruction of our ancestral lands and the destruction of thousands of Indigenous women, mothers, sisters, daughters. Earth Day, a time to reflect on how we treat our ancient Mother and all mothers and mothering figures, we need to do better, we need to be better children.

ROLAND SCHUBERT

Roland Schubert, "Bird on the Edge", B&W digital print, 2020

Roland Schubert, Bird on the Edge, 2020

Bird on the Edge is a photograph of a seagull taken at St. Mary's, Ontario. The bird is on the edge of a dam which was built in the 1800's to power a mill which no longer exists. The dam is dysfunctional.

SANDRA SEMCHUK

Sandra Semchuk, "she was learning how to be in family", giclee print, 2020

Sandra Semchuk, she was learning how to be in family, 2020

When I look at the forest that surrounds me I recognize kinships in form and in possible relations. The arteries that feed my frontal lobe, the control panel of personality and our ability to communicate, are mirrored back to me in the intricate systems of trunk, branch and roots and mycelium. We may experience sentience in the wider-than-human as familiar---as equal. In Becoming Animal, David Abrams wrote: “Such reciprocity is the very structure of perception. We experience the sensuous world only by rendering ourselves vulnerable to that world. Sensory perception is this ongoing interweavement: the terrain enters into us only to the extent that we allow ourselves to be taken up within that terrain.”

We meet and greet in presence.

CAROLYN SIMMONS

Carolyn Simmons, "Phantom Tree Mother in Winter", photography, 2018

Carolyn Simmons, Phantom Tree Mother in Winter, 2018

Several years ago in May, I happened to witness a sudden flash snow storm while walking with a friend down a road towards Lake Laberge. For a very short length of time, snow fell intensely. That winter, I had been wondering if when a tree falls down or is cut down, it experiences the loss as a phantom, still standing in the air? When I saw the snow falling densely that day, I immediately saw the opportunity to use the density as a lens, photographing the spruce trees through it. This picture, called Phantom Tree Mother in Winter, is an image of the top half of a spruce tree photographed looking through that momentary snow storm, in May.

I’ve seen the weather become more and more unpredictable here in the Yukon. At one time, the snow would always arrive to stay in early November and begin to leave in early April. The snow would fall gently throughout the night. We knew when the coldest days would be. In January, ice fog would hang in the air. Winter was majestic. Grandly silent. Another time. Another world.

Now we don’t know when the snow will come, how much will fall or how long it will last. Some winters, there is so little snow on the ground - grass tufts show. It is as if winter has left us. Where is it? Why does it not return? In contrast, this year the snow came abruptly and heavily in mid-October and continued to fall into April, accompanied by unusually high winds and -35C temperatures.

I don’t want to rant here. Some of us saw this coming. I do things in my own life to make a contribution: replaced my lawn with a meadow, grow plants for bees, keep vehicle use to a minimum, be understanding of others, support my community. I suggest a cultural shift is needed.

ASHLEY SNOOK

Ashley Snook, "VHD VHD", glass, hair, sand, organic material, essential oils: lavender, lemon, cypress, mint, patchouli, recorded sound, 2019

Ashley Snook, VHD VHD, 2019

VHD VHD is an installation that explores the complexities of our interconnected existence by emphasizing the sensory elements of sight, sound, and smell, and encapsulating aspects of biophilic curiosity, while troubling the desire to retain positive energy.

Within the current epoch of the Anthropocene, VHD VHD explores how human and nonhuman species live within and without natural systems amongst, landscapes and spacescapes. This installation questions how one can obtain and maintain positive energy in a time of immense destruction. Here I contend that our human proximity to nature is known to have an affective impact on our wellbeing, given that being close to nature can counteract negativity and increase pleasant feelings. However, we need to ask, how do we hold, retain, and perhaps store positive energy on a depleting planet? This installation emphasizes the realities of human and nonhuman life, particularly the continuous cycle of life and death, while addressing the challenge to find inner peace during a time of ecological destruction.

JEAN SPENCE

Jean Spence, "Little Views of Lake Erie # 6", oil on canvas, 2002

Jean Spence, Little Views of Lake Erie # 6, 2002

The large dark cloud that is hanging over us is a reminder of the harm that can be triggered if the earth and all that inhabit it are not respected and nourished. In rereading the essays for the art project “The London-Port Stanley Connection,” I was reminded of the importance of landscape, place and our relationship to it; our guardianship and documentation, both visual and written. Even within the short time frame since the exhibit, the losses acknowledged and endured, the contributions are there.

"The London Port Stanley Connection" group exhibition presented in 2005 included ECH artists Ron Benner, Jamelie Hassan, Jean Spence, John Tamblyn, and Bernice Vincent and involved collaborations with Port Stanley locations and independent businesses including the Moore Water Gardens, Mackies and the Telegraph House. A limited edition publication of 150 copies was published with The London Reader and Jason Dickson, ECH contributor and co-owner of Brown & Dickson Bookstore.

DIANA TAMBLYN

Diana Tamblyn, "Identified Substances: Epigenetics Eh!" (diptych) 196 X 17, Giclee (produced from pen and ink on bristol), 2011

Diana Tamblyn, Identified Substances: Epigenetics Eh! (diptych), 2011

In 2011, London Ontario hosted the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics (called Epigenetics Eh!). The objective of this conference was to showcase the breadth of epigenetic research on environment and health across Canada. The organizers of the Conference and the London Arts Council offered 10 artists the opportunity to attend a presentation about Epigenetics from local scientists who are specialists in this area. The artists were then commissioned to create a piece based on the presentation and understanding of the practice.

I was one of the lucky artists asked to participate. The whole thing was utterly fascinating. Epigenetics is a rapidly growing field of science defined as “Any function change in the genome that does not involve an alteration of the DNA sequence”. In layman's terms one can view this as nature vs. nurture - where nature is a person's DNA, and nurture represents all sorts of external factors that can alter a person's physiology without changing their DNA.

What captured my imagination from the presentation on Epigenetics to the artists - was the subject of Epigenetics and the environment. Specifically, that chemicals in our environment can change the “readout” of our genes, and that multiple levels of these compounds (even if found at low “safe” levels) have an additive quality that combined can have a detrimental impact on a person’s health and well-being.

JEFF THOMAS

Jeff Thomas, "Broken Treaties, 1613 -", digital - pigment print on archival paper, 2020

Jeff Thomas, Broken Treaties, 1613 -, digital - pigment print on archival paper, 2020

Travelogue: I visited the Caledonia protest site after things had settled down and documented the signage. As I drove to the reserve I was followed by a black SUV so I drove around the SUV stopped following me, before going to my destination.

Key to images (left to right)

Jeff Thomas, Caledonia, Ontario, 2007, “OH CANADA,” Argyle Street S. Occupation Site, GPS Coordinates: 43.05713, -79.96581 Protest site with Six Nations of the Grand River asserting ownership via the Haldimand land deed (stolen land in 1841), The original Haldimand Tract that the Iroquois were given stretched from Kitchener, Ontario to Lake Erie, six miles on each side of the Grand River. Only 5 percent of the original 950,000 acres remain.

Jeff Thomas, Albany, New York, Dutch Man & Indigenous Man (Mohawk?) Monument, 2004, Tri-Centennial Park, Broadway & Montgomery Street, facing the Hudson River, GPS Coordinates: 42.65421, -73.74746

In 1613 The Dutch and Haudenosaunee signed the first treaty on Turtle, known as the Two Row, and commemorated as the Two Row Wampum Belt.

Jeff Thomas, Chief Red Robe, Grand River looking north from Lake Erie, Port Maitland, 2008, GPS Coordinates: 42.85705, -79.5791

Jeff Thomas, Caledonia, Ontario, 2007, “OH CANADA,” Argyle Street S. Occupation Site, GPS Coordinates: 43.05713, -79.96581 Protest site with Six Nations of the Grand River asserting ownership via the Haldimand land deed (stolen land in 1841), The original Haldimand Tract that the Iroquois were given stretched from Kitchener, Ontario to Lake Erie, six miles on each side of the Grand River. Only 5 percent of the original 950,000 acres remain.

Jeff Thomas, Albany, New York, Dutch Man & Indigenous Man (Mohawk?) Monument, 2004, Tri-Centennial Park, Broadway & Montgomery Street, facing the Hudson River, GPS Coordinates: 42.65421, -73.74746

In 1613 The Dutch and Haudenosaunee signed the first treaty on Turtle, known as the Two Row, and commemorated as the Two Row Wampum Belt.

Jeff Thomas, Chief Red Robe, Grand River looking north from Lake Erie, Port Maitland, 2008, GPS Coordinates: 42.85705, -79.5791

BERNICE VINCENT (1934 - 2016)

Bernice Vincent, "Northern Vision: Clear Cutting", Acrylic paint on board 52" x 40", 1991

"Southern Vision: Burning the Rainforest", Installaion: Acrylic paint on board and acrylic paint on gallery wall and ceiling Cut out painting on board 52" x 40", 1991

From "The Road Show" at Gibson Gallery, 1991

During the past few years, I have made a series of paintings concentrating on our contemporary use of the land. Some of these paintings have included variations on a generic white car, "Everycar" travelling along hard-edged grey roads that are imposed on masses of detailed, lush, green landscape - similar to the summertime landscape of South Western Ontario.

More recently, for the "Road Show", I have used cut-out formats, three dimensional pieces, and other formal devices to emphasize the thrust of the roads, and to draw the viewer into each individual work. The exhibition itself is shaped to take the viewer from a somewhat amused reaction to the unexpected treatment of a familiar environment, to a more somber, indeed appalling, presentation of the roads that lead us to the desecration of more distant sites.

"Northern Vision" is a symbolic presentation of the scars made on the landscape by clear cutting. "Southern Vision" is an installation in which the road leads into an apocalyptic vision of the burning of rain forest, with painted smoke billowing up the wall and onto the ceiling above the viewer, threatening to engulf everything around it.

- Bernice Vincent (1934 - 2016)

ESTHER VINCENT

Esther Vincent , Going Down To Jackson, 2015

Artweek Peterborough hosted The Jackson Creek Project in 2015 and invited artists to celebrate and explore Jackson Creek which runs through the centre of the city.

Jackson Creek is often under threat from development. It is repeatedly the subject of contention in an ongoing debate when the specter of a parkway development threatens to destroy the natural environment of Jackson Creek and Jackson Park, the most uninterrupted and extensive natural space within the city of Peterborough. Many Peterborough citizens regularly protest the proposals for this parkway.

In light of this threat to the creek and the park, I wanted to document the full length of the creek and the people who love it. I put out a call and was overwhelmed with positive response. Through August and September 2015, I photographed a total of seventy seven subjects at locations of their choosing.

The final video, with a soundtrack of the creek's moving water, is a document of the changeable and persistent nature of this body of water that moves through Peterborough, giving it life and acting as a perennial reminder of the land as it was before the city was built on its banks.

More information on the project click here.

CHRISTINE WALDE

Christine Walde, "I Can Feel The Sky", black vinyl lettering on monthly calendar paper (August 2018 on verso), 12" x 12" x 12" x 12", 2018.

Christine Walde, "Nothing Lasts Forever", black vinyl lettering on monthly calendar paper (April 2018 on verso), 12" x 12" x 12" x 12", 2018.

Christine Walde, "The Future is Burning", black vinyl lettering on monthly calendar paper (January 2018 on verso), 12" x 12" x 12" x 12", 2018.

Christine Walde, I Can Feel the Sky / Nothing Lasts Forever / The Future is Burning, 2018

RECORD SUNSET is a set of text works featuring images of tropical sunsets that asks: how does our predilection for Paradise blind us to the truth of our environmental reality as a planet threatened by global warming? Black block text stands juxtaposed against impossibly perfect images, disrupting and disambiguating the romance of the sunset with the cheap commodification of nature. The dimensions of the paper are the same size as a 12" vinyl record sleeve, evoking associations with "record-breaking" and "record temperatures," while suggesting a possible future music of the next great mass extinction.

JADE WILLIAMSON

Jade Williamson, "Human Impact", conte and silver leaf on wood encapsulated in epoxy with silver steel legs, 2021

Jade Williamson, Human Impact, 2021

My practice focuses on raising awareness of endangered species by addressing the risks human activities have on wildlife and the environment. It aims to communicate the threats to our cohabitants and bring attention to the behaviors that contribute to their extinction. This piece speaks of domesticity via imagery and materiality.

The faded representation of a Hawksbill turtle in conte demonstrates the gradual disappearance of the species. By including an image of plastic rings, I am communicating the foreign materials that pose a threat to this species. I specifically attached silver leaf to the plastic pollution due to its associations with unnatural, man-made material; symbolizing humanity's impact on the sea and its wildlife. Its harsh presence in my work compared to the fragile conte material represents a foreign entity. This works in conversation with the reflective surface image of the turtle and sculptural aspect of the table. The glossy surface reflects the viewer within the piece, thus relating to the impact of humankind on wildlife. The way the epoxy fades the fragile conte material mirrors how this ignorance won't save these vulnerable species from the brink of extinction. This toxic relationship is exposed through this piece to raise awareness of the continuing threats posed to at-risk wildlife.

Exhibition Contributors

Thanks and Appreciations

Thank you to all the artists/activists who have contributed to the Embassy Cultural House's 1st Earth Day online group exhibit Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth in partnership with the Gardenship and State project. In particular, we are grateful to the Gardenship and State team: Jeff Thomas, Patrick Mahon, Michelle Wilson and Ashley Snook for partnering in this collaboration which brought a number of their project participants into our ECH community. Jeff and Patrick have contributed an insightful interview to this online community-initiative. In addition, Olivia Mossuto has contributed a feature essay, Art as engagement: creative ideation in the fight to save the planet which was originally published in an edited format on Terra Observer in June 2020.

This interdisciplinary exhibition could not have been realized in less than one month, without ECH contributing editors Niloufar Salimi and Olivia Mossuto, who deserve a special thanks for assisting with content development. We also thank Tariq Amery for providing an original song to the exhibition video, and ECH Advisory Circle members Dan and Mary Lou Smoke for the Indigenous Land Acknowledgement and their sharing of Indigenous knowledge for our May 2, 2021 online event.

The Embassy Cultural House would also like to acknowledge the early and ongoing work of artist Tom Benner who has created numerous exhibitions on the environment and the planet's species that are facing extinction. Thirty-one years ago Tom presented The Coves, a solo exhibition at the ECH in April 7- April 29, 1990 which overlapped with Earth Day. In these artworks, Tom recognized the ecological significance and the uniqueness of this threatened local oxbow wetland, including its flora and fauna, in London, Ontario.

Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth is exceptional in its social relationships, breaking down hierarchies and engaging with an intergenerational community of contributors. Kian Saadani-Gordon joins his father, Tariq Hasan Gordon, and grandparents (Dave Gordon, Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner) as a contributor with his animation Up In Smoke. Likewise, Tariq Amery and his grandmother Jessie Amery are both contributors. Esther Vincent presents a work of hers, as well as one on behalf of her mother, Bernice Vincent (1934 - 2016), and in honour of Bernice's 1991 exhibit The Road Show thirty years ago we also prepared a retrospective page to showcase Bernice's important art work to address environmental issues. Aloysha Ferris contributed a work by his mother, kerry ferris (1949 - 2016).

The first Earth Day in 1970 mobilized millions of people for the protection of the planet. This event 51 years ago is credited with launching the modern environmental movement and is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event. Earth Day led to the passage of landmark environmental laws around the world and, in 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day to sign the Paris Climate Agreement.

Over fifty contributors have responded to our invitation to participate in this project which speaks to the urgent need to face the global environmental challenges that are risking planetary extinction. We are not alarmist in our call to action. The collective ignorance of climate crisis deniers evokes the tale of the boiling frog. The story recounts that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out. However, if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated the frog will be cooked to death. The climate crisis impact on planet earth is our collective pot that is beginning to boil and its impacts are felt everywhere, from droughts, to floods, to forest fires, and biodiversity extinction.

There is a similarly urgent need to acknowledge and reconcile with Canada's colonial legacy and the continued injustices that Indigenous communities face from systemic discrimination and racism. Indigenous knowledge inherently imbues cultural practices that live within the means of the local geography and climate. This knowledge is reflected in the more than 70 Indigenous languages spoken across the territories that make up Canada's geographic boundaries.

The title of this exhibit Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth is meant to be both a call to action and provide a way to move forward. An important step towards saving the planet can be done by respecting the traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples. Hundreds of years ago Indigenous communities taught the first settlers how to live and travel on Turtle Island. It is time to remember this shared history and restore the earth together.

Ron Benner, Jamelie Hassan and Tariq Hassan Gordon
April 19, 2021