Yael Brotman: The World Is a Very Narrow Bridge

SNAP Gallery

Yael Brotman, Sandbags round my life 5, 2021, etching, chine collé; inkjet and hand stencil on Hahnemühle paper, unique edition, aluminum mounted, 34″ x 24″. Photo: P. Legris

The World Is a Very Narrow Bridge

October 11 – November 15, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 11, 7 – 9pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, October 11, 6 – 7pm
SNAP (Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists), Edmonton

Artist Statement

We are living in difficult times. Extreme climatic events and political dramas are creating chaos. The World Is a Very Narrow Bridge, this exhibition’s title, implies that we should be fearful because of the precarious path we are on. When taken literally, I admit that the prospect of crossing a thin suspension bridge causes my vertigo to kick in. But I have developed strategies of watching the horizon and not peering into the chasm below. Metaphorically, we want to remain above that chasm harbouring humanity’s dark impulses. To brace that bridge and calm the confusion around us, we must consider personal actions that we can take: lingering, thinking quietly and cultivating small-scale moments. These would help us make sense of experience and imagine new ways of understanding where we’re at.

In this exhibition I present bodies of work that examine resilience and hope, antidotes to harm that humanity can inflict. The 2020–22 series, Sandbags round my life, was created during COVID lockdown when everyone needed emotional support in their isolation. ‘Sandbags’ is a reference to my teenage years in Winnipeg when people helped fill sandbags to protect houses from the rising waters of the rivers. The rivers flooded every spring and each time, the community came out to help. This series also explores the experience of human migration, resulting from climate disasters and wars, and the precarious nature of temporary shelters.

Yael Brotman, The Junk Drawer, 2024-25, etching on Kurotani paper, collage, archival inkjet printing, hand stencilling, 1/5 VE, 15″ x 15″. Photo: P. Legris

A book installation in this exhibition, Intake; Vision and Dignity at the Mount Carmel Clinic, speaks to the resilience and inventiveness of New Canadians. I interviewed people who had been connected historically to the Mount Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg’s North End and those who currently work there. The free Clinic was begun in 1926 by Jewish immigrants from Poland; women were on the first board and bought the land for the Clinic. It became an important model of success that inspired Tommy Douglas to imagine universal healthcare in Canada. The Clinic with its mandate of patient-centric health now serves the local Indigenous community and influxes of immigrants who live nearby. The prints in the book are based on an amalgam of archival photos, the words of my interviewees and my personal experience as a child at the Clinic.

Another body of work, from which the title of the exhibition borrows its name, is ongoing. It examines in a poetic way a searching for balance so needed in our world. Our inherent capacity for creative thinking and for invention in engineering (mechanical, digital, and social) may offer solutions. Yet we must temper our inclination for rapid answers with attention to nuance and small-scale quiet moments of connection with nature. And balance our eco-anxiety with humour, lightheartedness, and colour. To that end, I have also installed Dance Party in the front windows of SNAP. Let’s remember to be joyful, an action of resistance that can dissipate fear and steady a narrow shaky bridge.

About the Artist

Yael Brotman RCA has a multi-faceted practice based in printmaking, and print-based sculpture and installation. She incorporates imagery suggesting human-made constructions, particularly temporary shelters, and structures found in nature. Her work focuses on themes of control, chance, and mystery, balancing sobering thoughts with hope and joy. Brotman has participated in several international exhibitions, most recently in Tokyo, Krakow, and Taiwan. This summer she was part of an art/science research residency in Svalbard, Norway. She lives and works in Toronto.

yaelbrotman.com
@yaelbrotman

Yael Brotman, INTAKE (page 23), 2023, Kurotani paper, etching, watercolour, hand stencilling, 1/5 VE, 14″ x 16″; hand-bound book, linen cover, western binding. Photo: J. Thalmann

About SNAP (Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists)

It is a non-profit artist run centre dedicated to printmaking in all its traditional and contemporary forms. SNAP provides critical space and resources for printmaking production, exhibition, and public education in Edmonton.

SNAP
10572 115 St. NW
Edmonton / ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (amiskwacîwâskahikan) AB T5H 3K6
780-423-1492
snapartists.com
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Accessibility:
SNAP Gallery is fully accessible. For more information, SNAP.

Image Descriptions:
1. Triangular sail-like shape in the middle; attached on the left to a pipe; pulleys and ropes on the right; thin green arc resembles part of a large wheel.
2. A lumpy square flies up to the left corner; its grey-brown textured surface is partially covered by square of lace; on the left, two red “legs” are suspended from a square, while on the right, a mechanical pipe hangs bent at its “knee”; a satellite dish stands on the upper right.
3. York boat on a river; portraits of clinic Founders on the sail; shoreline grasses; lower left corner, a person pushes a baby stroller.