GardenShip and State

Sharmistha Kar, Blurred Steps III, embroidery on found fabric (verso view), 2021

GardenShip and State

Curated by Jeff Thomas and Patrick Mahon
August 23 – October 20, 2024
Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, ON

Celebration Event: Saturday, September 14, 1:00 – 3:00pm, including an artists talk and live interactive performance by Naty Tremblay.

Join us for a local river clean-up, sponsored by the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority, September 14, 10:30am – 12:00pm
Click here for more information on the local river clean-up.

This is a family-friendly event, and young children are welcome.

Artists: Ron Benner, Lori Blondeau, Sean Caulfield, Anindita Chakraborty, Paul Chartrand, Tom Cull, Amelia Fay, Michael Farnan, Joan Greer, Jamelie Hassan, Sharmistha Kar, Jessica Karuhanga, Mark Kasumovic, Patrick Mahon, Olivia Mossuto, Quinn Smallboy, Ashley Snook, Adrian Stimson, Jeff Thomas, Andres Villar, Michelle Wilson

This exhibition brings together 21 artists and writers who engage in decolonial critique, environmental activism, and twenty-first century artistic practices to address what is arguably the problem of our times: environmental catastrophe. Inspired and aided by the living Two Row Treaty, originated between the Haudenosaunee and the Dutch in 1613, the project asks how we can work together and create together as a global community to restore the planet – while respecting differences and seeking to repair divisions and address injustices brought about by colonialism.

Co-curated by Jeff Thomas and Patrick Mahon, the exhibition features a vast array of works, many produced over a two-year period and originally shown at Museum London in 2021-22. The results of conversations between the artists and writers, as well as with members of local communities, those artworks are being presented at the Thames Art Gallery alongside new and updated projects, offering a multi-sensory experience that inhabits the main gallery, and moves upward into the mezzanine space. Comprising textiles, photography, sculpture, video, gardening, and installation, the show invites gallery participants to see, to hear and to engage with aesthetically rich and culturally complex artworks that are simultaneously provocative and challenging –and also sources of hope.

For this version of GardenShip and State, environmental projects by artists and activists from the Chatham region are being highlighted on the mezzanine, as well. Engaged in tree planting, pollinator gardens, harvesting and creating with wild clay, organic gardening, and working to understand and protect habitats, the contributions of the Hibernaculum Collective enhance the important visual conversation that GardenShip brings to the Thames Art Gallery.

GardenShip and State Installation View (Thames Art Gallery, 2024, Chatham, ON)

Hibernaculum Collective: Troubled Critters & Healing Spells

Presented in collaboration with GardenShip and State

Collective members include: Andrea Nickerson, Alia Fortune Weston, Faye Mullen, Joce Tremblay, Nat Tremblay, and Sarah Couture-McPhail in collaboration with Amy Soberano, Mike & Deb Tremblay, Rashel Tremblay, Emily, Oddy, Saria, Magnolia, the land, wilds and waters.

Troubled Critters & Healing Spells is an ever-evolving eco-art project by the Hibernaculum Collective, a diverse group of artists, storytellers and earth workers using the Tremblay family farm as their base of operations. This project is included as a locally based component of the GardenShip and State exhibition at the Thames Art Gallery in Chatham, exploring land and water decolonization, restoration, relationship and reciprocity through traditional wild clay processes.

For this exhibition the collective foraged wild clay, exploring how honourable harvest might differ from its historical use as a commodity for settling, farming and industrially producing clay tiles by some of their ancestors. Gatherings and feasts were held with family and friends throughout the project to process the clay, fire their forms, and discuss what decolonization and healing the land and waters means to them, generated through artistic and collaborative processes.

Local clay tiles and limestone were ground down with a corn mill for grog. They then hand shaped clay vessels and objects meant to honour the land, water and wildlife that is surviving deforestation, industrial agriculture, and climate change, striving to uplift through those forms the healing witnessed in these ecosystems as a result of organic permaculture, habitat rehabilitation and creative stewardship. The clay was fired in open-earth pits inspired by traditional indigenous techniques for creating earthenware, using a Raku technique for colouring the clay by adding phragmite, sumac flowers, wild peas and eggshells all gathered from the land.

Ceremonies were hosted over the fire to invoke hopes for the world(s) they want to live in – where social and ecological justice is a priority and no being is disposable. Through this project the Collective hopes to invite the community into creative dialogue about what it means to be good stewards in these territories.

Hibernaculum Collection: Troubled Critters & Healing Spells. Photograph by Alia Fortune Weston

For more information about GardenShip and State please visit the project website or view the project’s Instagram. GardenShip and State exhibition catalogues are available for purchase at the Thames Art Gallery or through Museum London website.

The Thames Art Gallery is dedicated to promoting the understanding, appreciation, conservation, and enjoyment of the visual arts. The gallery places emphasis on arts education programming and multidisciplinary exhibitions that encourages engagement and fosters critical dialogues. Public programs, curatorial research, collecting, and audience development are all considered inherent components of the organization’s activities.

We acknowledge that the Thames Art Gallery is on the lands of the Anishinaabeg Nation. This is the traditional land of the Three Fires Confederacy: the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe. We also recognize that this land is now home to the Delaware Nation. This land was settled through the McKee Purchase Treaty of 1790 and we, as beneficiaries of that treaty, must recognize our responsibilities including our collective responsibilities to the land and water.

The Thames Art Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursdays from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.

For further information or touring enquiries, please contact the gallery curator, Vanessa Cornell at vanessac@chatham-kent.ca

Thames Art Gallery
75 William Street North, Chatham, ON N7M 4L4
www.tagartspace.com
ckartgallery@chatham-kent.ca
226 312 2023 ext 4425

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Accessibility:
The Thames Art Gallery is accessible. For more information, here