We Built a House Out of the Things We Had Gathered bring s together works by three artists who each utilize methods of assemblage to critically examine and participate in diverse ecologies. By conceptualizin g ecology as open ended assemblages of materials and organisms\, artists Ma ggie Groat\, Joar Nango and Leya Tess consider the flows of materials in a globalised economy while paying close attention to local contexts and their interactions.
Exposing the raw edges of capitalist production \, Joar Nango’s project European Everything reveals landscapes of accumulated waste products and the peripheral commun ities who scratch a living from them. A short film documents a journey thro ugh these strange environments while a collection of photographs and small objects gathered along the way examines the resourceful bricolage and susta inable knowledges of the people who respond to these harsh circumstances.
Maggie Groat’s sculptural assemblages transform salvaged materi als from daily life into tools for connection with place and speculation fo r possible futures. Utilitarian artefacts\, such as a set of mirrors to ref lect light back to the moon\, index the artist’s poetic gestures that seek to cultivate alternative ways-of-knowing while entering into relationships with more-than-human entities.
Meticulous drawings by Leya Tess subve rt settler-colonial maps of the British Columbia coastline by repopulating the terrain with the plant and animal assemblages that define this region. Tess’s organic forms variously erase and highlight certain features of the maps in correlation with her lived experiences of these areas and the local ecosystems.
Together these works use appropriation and salvage as th e means to strategically foreground acts of collection and arrangement\, re sponding to contemporary environmental problems with creativity and resilie nce. The theme of nomadic exploration runs through this exhibition as a sub text\, linking the meditative journey of European Everything to Tess’s maps and Groat’s visions of post-industrial futures. The figure of the resource ful bricoleur combines with that of the time-traveller\, seeking messages f rom the deep past to guide her through uncertain times to come.
Maggi e Groat is a visual artist who utilizes a range of media\, including works on paper\, sculpture\, textiles\, site-specific interventions and publicati ons. Influenced by her Haudenosaunee and settler ancestry\, and her roles a s mother and environmental steward\, her research surrounds site-responsive ness with regards to shifting territories\, decolonial methodologies\, and salvage practices. Groat earned an MFA degree from the University of Guelph in 2010. In 2014 she was the Audain Artist Scholar in Residence at Emily C arr University of Art and Design. Groat has exhibited extensively across Ca nada including at Mercer Union\, YYZ Artists’ Outlet\, Art Gallery of York University (Toronto)\, Western Front\, (Vancouver)\, and Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (Kitchener\, ON). She lives and works in St. Catharines\, ON.< /p>
Joar Nango is a Norwegian-Sámi artist and architect based in Tromsø\, Norway. He holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from the Norwegian Univ ersity of Science and Technology. Located at the boundary between architect ure\, design and art\, Nango’s practice explores Indigenous identity throug h the oppositions and contradictions in contemporary architecture. In 2010 Nango co-founded the architectural collective FFB\, specializing in tempora ry structures and interventions in urban contexts. He has exhibited in Cana da at Western Front (Vancouver) and Gallery 44 (Toronto)\, as well as inter nationally\, including documenta 14 (Athens and Kassel\, 2017)\; 43SNA\, Me dellin (Colombia\, 2013)\; and the Norwegian Sculpture Biennale at Vigeland smuseet (Oslo\, Norway\, 2013).
Leya Tess has lived on various island s on the BC coast\, working as a kayak guide and illustrator. She holds a B FA from the University of Victoria and has exhibited at the fifty fifty art s collective (Victoria)\, the Ministry of Casual Living (Victoria)\, and th e James Black Gallery (Vancouver). In 2015 Tess participated in the Listhús Artist Residency\, Ólafsfjörður\, Iceland. She is currently studying coast al ecology in Prince Rupert.
Laurie White is a writer and art histori an\, and currently a master’s candidate in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia. She earned a BA in Art History and V isual Studies from the University of Victoria in 2015. She has curated exhi bitions at the fifty fifty arts collective (Victoria)\, Western Gallery (Be llingham\, WA) and AHVA Gallery (Vancouver).
This exhibition was orga nized with support from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment for C uratorial Studies through the Department of Art History\, Visual Art and Th eory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The U niversity of British Columbia.
Public critique with Cheyanne Turions to be held at 3pm April 16\, 2018
Image: Ley a Tess\, In the Calm\, In the Surge / Somewhere Between Paradise and Desola tion
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