Public Notice Stephen Andrews Ruth Cuthand Alison Humphrey Kim Morgan Abraham Anghik Ruben Ho Tam Elaine Whittaker 1
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Alison Humphrey Stephen Andrews Ruth Cuthand Cuthand Ruth Elaine Whittaker Alison Humphrey Ho Tam Kim Morgan Stephen Andrews Abraham Anghik Ruben Abraham Anghik Ruben Ho Tam Kim Morgan Elaine Whittaker Curated by Sonya Jones The RobertBYMcLaughlin Gallery CURATED SONYA JONES Oshawa
Left: Glenbow Archives NA-1234-5 5
Alison Humphrey, Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic, 2017, 8’3� x 144 x 144cm. Collaborators: Caitlin Fisher, Steven J. Hoffman and LaLaine Ulit-Destajo, motion-tracked interactive projections, science fiction. Collection of the artist
Cover: K im Morgan, Sigh (detail), 2016, installation, 12.2 x 4 m. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio, with additional funding from Arts Nova Scotia. Collection of the artist 6
Table of Contents 09
Introduction and Acknowledgments
10 The Public’s Service Announcement Sonya Jones
24 Installation Documentation 42 Artist Biographies 48 List of Works
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Introduction and Acknowledgments Here at the RMG we create conversation through the arts that encourage people to experience the world differently. An exhibition that deals with the complexities around our fear of disease is an example of the type of conversations we’d like to initiate. Technology and the media often spread hysteria and fear around disease, and as that fear swells, it plays various roles in how a disease is perceived and understood. The artists’ work in Public Notice remind us of what is often lost when we are deep in the thralls of fear, empathy and understanding. We would like to thank Stephen Andrews, Ruth Cuthand, Alison Humphrey, Kim Morgan, Abraham Anghik Ruben, Ho Tam and Elaine Whittaker for their thoughtful and engaging work. Congratulations to Sonya Jones, exhibition curator, and the RMG’s Curator of Collections, for bringing the exhibition together in a comprehensive way and for her thoughtful essay included in this publication. To the RMG Staff, thanks to Leila Timmins, Lucas Cabral, Linda Jansma, and Saira Knowles for their dedication and support in making this exhibition a reality. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the City of Oshawa for their ongoing support and generosity. Donna Raetsen-Kemp CEO, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Left: Ruth Cuthand, Influenza, 2008, glass beads, paint on suede backing, 65 x 48 cm. The Saskatchewan Arts Board Permanent Collection. 9
10
The human mind is susceptible to cultural representations, in the way the human organism is susceptible to diseases.1 – Dan Sperber, “Anthropology and Psychology: Towards an Epidemiology of Representations”
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The Public’s Service Announcement Sonya Jones From the Black Plague to Ebola, throughout history, fear of disease has fueled xenophobia. Diseases are often seen as threats f rom “others,” whether marginalized or racialized groups, or foreigners. However, the 1918 Spanish influenza disrupted the traditional social and institutional practice of blaming disease on outsiders. Considered to be the deadliest outbreak of infectious disease in recorded history, killing at least 50 million people worldwide, the Spanish Influenza crossed social and class boundaries, unexpectedly targeting young adults at high rates. Much was learned f rom the pandemic, f rom health care practices to viral science, but what makes the Spanish Influenza unique was the lack of media coverage it received in the censored newspapers at the time. Incorrectly thought to have originated in Spain, its nickname came from the fact that Spain, neutral during World War I, was one of the only nations not stifling reports in the media about the devastation of the disease. For combatant countries, the media’s attention was on the war effort, which meant that fear and panic about influenza did not sweep the globe. Importantly, as infectious disease scholar Mark Humphries notes, this pandemic, “laid the basis for a new ideology of public health governance, one that saw disease as a community problem, not only an individual hardship or a plague brought on by outsiders.”2
Right: Elaine Whittaker, Shiver, 2015, 2300 petri dishes, grown salt crystals, wool, fishing wire, vinyl print, pipette tips, wire, 2.6 x 1.5 x 1.5 m. Collection of the artist.
1 2
12
Dan Sperber, “Anthropology and Psychology: Towards an Epidemiology of Representations.” (1985) Man 20 (1), p. 74 . Mark Osborne Humphries, The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 194.
13
Compare the 1918 public response to what an outbreak of that magnitude would be today—panic and terror ignited through the 24-hour news cycle. While more news coverage in 1918 may have helped quell the rapid spread of the influenza, today’s unlimited access to information has the capability to spread fear and panic, potentially complicating the public’s response and understanding about a disease. Take for instance the reaction to the 2014-15 Ebola crisis: 10 confirmed cases in North America, but over 21 million tweets about Ebola in October 2015 in the United States alone.3 The media referred to the panic as “fearbola,” and there was widespread misinformation about facts of the disease that led to racially-charged stigma against an entire continent of people. While inciting fear may inspire people to take precautions and help control transmission, it also divides the healthy from the unhealthy, those who are willing to help from those who are not, and can confuse fact from fiction. “When fear and misinformation are injected into a population, the effects are almost impossible to eradicate.”4 The artists’ work in Public Notice all deal with disease and illness f rom various perspectives, whether historical or racial, founded in loss and misunderstanding, or cultural and social influences. While fear often trumps understanding, the works in this exhibition remind us about the role empathy, education, and community play in challenging fear-based assumptions about disease. A work that deals directly with the aftermath of the Spanish influenza is Inuit sculptor Abraham Anghik Ruben’s Kublualuk; The Right of Passage. Reaching northern Canada This page and right: Abraham Anghik Ruben, Kublualuk; The Right of Passage, 2013/2014, bronze, 1/9, 75 x 52 x 37 cm. Kipling Gallery Collection. 14
3 4
ttp://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/03/fear.aspx. accessed February 21, 2018. h S eth Mnookin, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 310.
through colonial contact, the 1918 outbreak
the gift would be given only on condition
decimated northern communities, causing
th at i t be used fo r th e ben e f i t a n d
some survivors to leave their homes to
guidance of his people. In the following
settle elsewhere, bringing their experiences
years Kublualuk became instrumental in
and stories with them. One such survivor was
the survival of the Inuvialuit. His memory
Kublualuk, an apprentice shaman who
and his stories are still being passed on
worked with Ruben’s great-grandfathers.
from family to family.5
Ruben describes the work:
Although Ruben lost the ability to speak his
In the depths of sorrow and fear for his
language through his isolation within the
people he sought guidance by going into
Canadian residential school system, his art
the hills to find answers through solitude
helps him reconnect to his personal history and
and prayer. Falling asleep on a hill top,
identity: “I have chosen to be a storyteller for
Kublualuk was caught in a fierce storm.
my people, through the medium of sculpture.”6
Out of the storm came a giant white
While Kublualuk; The Right of Passage sheds
falcon who grasps Kublualuk’s chest,
some light on the devastation of the pandemic,
lifting him into the air. The falcon told a
it focuses on how the experience shaped
frightened Kublualuk not to be afraid, as
Kublualuk and, in turn, his legacy. The fear on
he had come in answer to his prayers. The
Kublualuk’s face is countered by the hope and
falcon told him that he was here to show
survival in the story.
him how to become a shaman, and that 5
6
http://www.abrahamruben.com/artwork/kublualuk-theright-of-passage/. accessed April 17, 2018. Darlene Coward Wight, Abraham Anghik Ruben (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2001), 12. 15
Stephen Andrews, Facsimile, Part II, 1991, graphite, beeswax, oil, Rhoplex, plywood, mahogany, and paper piano roll, 40.5 x 20.3 cm (each). Collection of Oakville Galleries, purchased with the support of the Elizabeth L. Gordon Art Program of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, 1992
Stephen Andrews work Facsimile,
reproductions that are “inherent in the
Part II also honours the lives of his subjects
facsimile transmission process [works] as
while acting as witness to the devastation
a metaphor for memory’s failures–for our
of HIV to the Toronto queer communities.
inevitable eventual inability to fully recollect
Andrews was himself diagnosed with
the past, to remember precisely those who
HIV in the late 80’s and produced this
have died.”7 The work acts as a monument to
work between 1991 and 1993, a time when
those whose memories and loss have directly
heightened fear and misinformation about
stemmed f rom HIV. At the same time, the
HIV stigmatized queer communities. The
blurred and defective portraits recall the
work shown is one of a four part series of
flaws and failings of the media and political
black and white portraits of casualties of
figures to curtail the fear, stigmatization, and
AIDS, hung in a grid above a piano player
misinformation about HIV/AIDS. Andrews,
roll with the names of the subjects listed.
however, does not focus on that fear but
The likenesses are taken from obituaries
instead both humanizes and grieves the lives
that appeared in Toronto’s Xtra newspaper
that were lost.
Proud Lives section, that were provided to Andrews through faxes. The imperfect 16
7
Scott Watson and Annette Hurtig, Stephen Andrews: Likeness (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001), 23.
Kim Morgan, Sigh (detail), 2016, installation, 12.2 x 4 m. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio, with additional funding from Arts Nova Scotia. Collection of the artist. Photo credit: Adam Schreiber.
Similarly, Kim Morgan’s work Sigh has
and emotionally powerful, with just the sight
a personal connection: in this case, her
of blood potentially evoking emotional and
mother’s death f rom ovarian cancer. The
fearful responses. Morgan talks about the
work is a very large drapery depicting
profound importance of blood: “Blood is
high resolution images of scanned blood
the material fabric of our life… It has
samples, in deep reds and blacks. The curtain
medical, social and political meanings and
gently moves, or “sighs,” bringing it to life,
consequences.”9 Typically, a curtain’s purpose
suggesting its permeable nature. Using
is to give privacy, yet here, something as
an electron microscope, Morgan scanned
intimate and raw as blood is exposed to
various relational blood samples: her own, her
be viewed and examined. At the same
mother’s, her partner’s, and “various people
t i m e curtains are meant to be opened,
with blood disorders and irregularities,” 8
revealing what’s behind them. The size of
including anemia and HIV; she then created
the image and curtain allows us to get up
a composite of the samples she refers to
close to each cell, where we might begin to
as a “universal blood group.” Blood is our
see some irregularities and inconsistencies.
most intimate possession; it is both vital
Many people have a fear of blood because it
8
Kim Morgan, Artist Statement, 2016.
9
Ibid. 17
stands as a reminder of our own vulnerability to injury, disease and death. The decadent and rich quality of the drapery offers an elegant intimacy, bringing together fear with beauty through the idea of blood as a universal connector. Concepts of fear and beauty continue in Ruth Cuthand’s series Trading and Surviving. The works depict microscopic views of viruses with the name of the disease painted below: Influenza, Hantavirus, Syphilis, and Tuberculosis. In the detail you can see that the depictions of the viruses are beaded; the colours and intricacies of the beads on top of the rich black suede-like background give the microbes a beauty that counters their terrible effect on Indigenous populations. The European exchange o f bea ds fo r f ur w i th th e I n di g e n o u s p e op l e exposed communities to devastating diseases, as Cuthand explains, “the series examines both sides of European trade, which brought new items that revolutionized Aboriginal life… the downside was the decimation of many tribes through disease, which quickly spread, arriving even before Europeans.” 10 As artist and curator Gerald McMaster notes the beauty of the hand-stenciled labels also builds on this tension of beauty and fear: It is a great irony of the series that she has made the deadly microbes extremely beautiful. Yet even in these stunning works, Cuthand employs an “anti-aesthetic”... The stenciled lettering denies the viewer the guilty pleasure of lingering on the beauty of the roundels: it adamantly demands acknowledgement of the horrors represented by the roundels, insisting on an end to complacency and the need to for all of us to remember.11 Ruth Cuthand, Hantavirus, 2011, glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 63.5 x 48.3 cm. Collection of Karen Brouwers. 10
Ruth Cuthand, Tuberculosis, 2011, glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 63.5 x 48.3 cm. Collection of Marnie Schreiber. 18
11
http://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/dangerous-beauty/. Accessed April 20, 2018. Jen Budney, ed., Back Talk: Ruth Cuthand Works 1983-2009 (Saskatoon: Mendel Art Gallery and Tribe Inc., 2012), 81.
Once enticed by the beauty of the bead work and colour, the viewer is then conf ronted by the past, an uncomfortable pairing of attraction and repulsion. In Cuthand’s work, she uses beauty to draw us in, and fear to show how past lessons can inform the present. Ho Tam’s video In the Dark revisits the fear and hysteria of the 2004 SARS outbreak in Toronto, an epidemic many in the GTA lived through and remember. The video starts with images of Toronto sites—cityscapes, tourist destinations, and public transit—as it quickens, the images turn to the subject of SARS—masks, hospitals, travel advisory signs, quarantined areas, political statements, the benefit concert, scientific research—all the while the soundtrack intensifies. Reminiscent of the bustling energy of the city, the flashes of images recall the nonstop worldwide media coverage. The uncomfortable effect of the video returns the viewer to those dark few months when Torontonians lived under a veil of fear. Made the year following the outbreak, Tam epitomizes the feeling of panic that swept the city, one that was specifically directed at the Asian population. The intensity of flashing images, along with the quickening soundtrack, feels overwhelming, just as the continual media coverage of the epidemic, which largely (and mistakenly) blamed the Asian community, overloaded the public with information contributing to the anxiety and racially-motivated fear.
Right: Ho Tam, In the Dark, 2004, video, 6 minutes. Collection of the artist.. 19
Elaine Whittaker, I Caught it at The Movies, 2013, Petri dishes, digital images, mylar, gouache, agar, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1, 812.8 x 121.9 x 5.1 cm. Collection of the artist.
Elaine Whittaker’s I Caught it at the Movies considers a scientif ic approach to the various ways in which disease and fear is spread. Addressing the role pop culture and the entertainment industry plays in inciting fear and misunderstanding about epidemics, the installation contains hundreds of petri dishes which wrap in a line around the wall and contain both movie stills and bacteria formations. The vulnerability of humans to contagions is probably most obvious in crowded places such as movie theatres; every time you enter a highly populated space
20
there is an increased risk of being exposed
examine them up close, or better yet under
to infection. Whittaker takes this anxiety
a microscope. The tension of reality versus
one step further with the f ilm stills she
fiction is also prevalent through the bacteria
selects, all contagion-themed movies such
formations—one cannot tell if the bacteria
as Outbreak, 12 Monkeys, Contagion, 28
are real or fabricated, and what, if any, danger
Days Later, and I Am Legend. These are the
the artwork might pose. While we logically
quintessential epidemic doomsday films that
know that the films are fictitious accounts of
further fuel the fear of outbreaks. Contrasting
imagined epidemics and the bacteria cannot
the larger-than-life experience of watching
harm the public, our perception is influenced
films in theatres, the Petri dishes invite you to
by what we observe in popular culture.
Elaine Whittaker, Shiver, 2015, 2300 petri dishes, grown salt crystals, wool, fishing wire, vinyl print, pipette tips, wire, 2.6 x 1.5 x 1.5 metres. Collection of the artist.
Wit h Shiver , Whittaker creates an installation of more than 2,300 Petri dishes that considers humans as one collective body. Hanging like a chandelier, most of the Petri dishes contain crystallized salt formations that resemble cells, while a number of them also contain a single red thread the artist uses to symbolize cell mutations, like Ebola. Each dish may represent a human living in a densely populated area, or could represent the many cells that make up any human being. Underneath the chandelier is a large scale photo of a Petri dish, which Whittaker is asking, “Is the world just one big Petri dish incubating the source of its ultimate destruction?� 12 The whole installation appears to float, not unlike the pathogens themselves or the precariousness of living in a world exposed to epidemics; it carries a quiet beauty merging the divide between fear, science, and beauty. 12
https://www.elainewhittaker.ca/shiver/ Accessed April 16 2018. 21
Contagious disease is a shared experience but our tendency is to focus on the individual. In Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic, Alison Humphrey uses play to show the way our immunization decisions affect not just our personal health, but the health of those around us. When describing her work Humphrey quotes Eula Biss: “ imagine the action of a vaccine not just in terms of how it affects a single body, but also in terms of how it affects the collective body of a community.” 13 The interactive media installation offers insight into the unseen effects of vaccinations, and looks at how statistics can be developed into stories. Part science fiction, part fact, this mixed-reality game combines real-world statistical data to imagine a vaccine-preventable disease. The Shadowpox game begins with two choices that determine how your actions will affect the world around you: the country in which your avatar lives, and a decision as to whether to “Get the Vaccine” or “Risk the Virus.” The interactive “shadowpox” virus affects not only the player’s onscreen digital avatar, but also the members of the 100-strong animated population of which it is a part. Underlying the game is a real-world population-level statistical model, a reminder that, like individuals, countries do not deal with communicable disease on a level playing field. As you fight the disease, moving your hands to push the Alison Humphrey, Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic, 2017, 8’3” x 144 x 144cm. Collaborators: Caitlin Fisher, Steven J. Hoffman and LaLaine Ulit-Destajo, motion-tracked interactive projections, science fiction. Collection of the artist
pox from your body, you discover that each handful of virus you shed has the potential to infect your 99 neighbours. Your score mounts with each victim and at the end of the game it transforms into your “Infection
13
22
Eula Biss, On Immunity: An Inoculation (Minneapolis: MN: Graywolf Press), 19.
Ruth Cuthand, Syphilis, 2009, quillwork, paint on suede backing, 65 x 48 cm. The Saskatchewan Arts Board Permanent Collection.
Collection” or “Protection Collection,” where
influence reaction, yet there is still so much
abstract numbers are translated into fictional
more we can learn f rom it. The practice of
individuals, in a series of 99 trading cards
discriminating against and stigmatizing
sporting pictogram portraits and personal
groups of people has always existed and
short stories. These stories reveal the human
still persists today with HIV, SARS and Ebola
connection to our private choices, revealing
being recent examples. As Eula Biss aptly
larger repercussions of an individual’s actions.
states: “There will always be diseases against
The game balances the personal with the
which we cannot protect ourselves, and those
political, and counters fear through education
diseases will always tempt us to project our
and play.
fears onto other people.” 15 The artworks in this
14
Disease reminds us of our mortality and
exhibition collectively deconstruct our fear
permeability in a fragile world. While fear is a
by sharing lived experiences that allow for
natural reaction to disease, cultural influences
introspection and reflection. All seven artists
also make it a learned response. How can
have used their work to address disease
we transform this fear and what can it teach
and its effects either directly or indirectly,
us? The Spanish influenza was a moment in
personally or globally, and show how disease
history that challenged preconceptions about
need not divide us through fear, but instead
diseases and illustrated the media’s power to
should connect us.
14
See shadowpox.org/ZZZ for all 99 cards.
15
Eula Biss, On Immunity, 158. 23
24
Installation Documentation 25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
Artist Biographies 43
Stephen Andrews
Alison Humphrey
Born in Sarnia, Ontario, over the last thirty-
Alison Humphrey plays with story across
five years Stephen Andrews has exhibited
the f ields of drama, digital media, and
his work in Canada, the U.S., Brazil, Scotland,
education. After starting out as an intern
France, and Japan. He is represented in the
at Marvel Comics, she produced one of the
collections of The National Gallery of Canada,
first ever online alternate reality games for
Art Gallery of Ontario, Belkin Art Gallery,
science fiction author Douglas Adams’s
Schwartz Collection, Harvard, as well as
Starship Titanic. Humphrey initiated one
many private collections. His work deals
of the earliest transmedia in-fiction blogs
with memory, identity, technology and their
in a TV series, and co-wrote and directed
representations in various media including
two interactive, live-animated sci-fi theatre
drawing, animation, and recently painting.
projects: Faster than Night (Toronto) and The Augmentalist (Silicon Valley). Humphrey
Ruth Cuthand
holds a BA in American studies and studio art
An artist of Plains Cree and Scottish ancestry,
from Wellesley College, an MA in interactive
Cuthand’s practice, spanning over 30 years,
multimedia f rom the Royal College of
explores the f rictions between cultures,
Art, and an MFA in theatre directing from
the failures of representation, and the
York University. Currently a Vanier Scholar
political uses of anger. Cuthand’s beaded
working on a research-creation PhD in York’s
portraits of infectious agents significant to
department of Cinema and Media Arts, her
indigenous people, past and present, were
dissertation explores how a science-fiction
featured in the survey show of contemporary
storyworld (Shadowpox.org), co-created
Canadian art, Oh, Canada, at MASS MoCA
with young people on four continents, can
in 2012, which subsequently travelled across
empower civic imagination and public health
Canada. Her large-scale installation Don’t
problem-solving. www.alisonhumphrey.com
Breathe, Don’t Drink is part of the permanent collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Collaborators of Shadowpox:
and she is currently artist in residence at
The Antibody Politic
Wanuskewin Heritage Park, SK. In 2013, Cuthand was awarded the
Caitlin Fisher (producer and Poxémon card
Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Arts
writer) directs both the Augmented Reality
Award and in 2015 was named an Alumni
Lab and the new Immersive Storytelling Lab
of Influence by the College of Arts and
at York University where she held the Canada
Science at the University of Saskatchewan.
Research Chair in Digital Culture 2004-
Cuthand holds an MFA from the University
2014. A 2013 Fulbright Chair, Fisher is the
of Saskatchewan, and lives and works in
recipient of many international awards for
Saskatoon, SK.
digital storytelling including the Electronic Literature Organization Award for Fiction and
44
the Vinaròs Prize for AR poetry. She serves
Kim Morgan
on the international Board of Directors for
Kim Morgan is a visual artist working in
both the Electronic Literature Organization
installation and multi-media. Her work
and HASTAC, the Humanities, Arts, Science,
explores the impact of technology on
and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory.
people’s perceptions of time, space, and the
Currently she is engaged in a four-year
body, and the shifting boundaries between
SSHRC-funded research project exploring the
the private and the public. Morgan’s work
potential of long-form interactive narrative in
has been exhibited in galleries such as Mass
virtual and augmented reality.
MoCA, North Adams, Artpace San Antonio,
www.yorku.ca/caitlin/home/about.html
Texas, John Michael Kohler Arts Centre, Cynthia Broan Gallery, NYC, St. Paul’s Gallery,
Steven J. Hoffman (scientific director) is
New Zealand, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Mount
the Director of the Global Strategy Lab,
St. Vincent Art Gallery, and in public spaces–
a Professor of Global Health, Law, and
the Regina Transit System, the Vancouver
Political Science at York University, and the
Olympics 2010, and recently at the National
Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes
Arts Centre, Ottawa. Awards include; the Nova
of Health Research’s Institute of Population
Scotia Masterworks Award 2012, Arts Nova
& Public Health. Currently he is co-principal
Scotia Creation Grants, Saskatchewan Arts
investigator of a large $4.6 million CAD
Board, Canada Council for the Arts, and a co-
research consortium on “Strengthening
recipient SSHRC (Social Science Humanities
International Collaboration for Capitalizing on
and Research Council) Research and Creation
Cost-Effective and Life-Saving Commodities
Grant. Recent residencies are Artpace San
(i4C)” with Trygve Ottersen at the Norwegian
Antonio Texas, The Dalhousie Medical School,
Institute of Public Health.
the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
www.stevenhoffman.ca
Residency, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Morgan has a B.A. in Literature from McGill
LaLaine Ulit-Destajo (technical director)
University, a BFA in Sculpture/Extended
is a creative coder based in Toronto. She
Media from the School of Visual Arts in NYC,
develops custom software, most often in
and an MFA in Sculpture/Installation, from
a live performance context, using C++, C#
the University of Regina. She is a Professor
(Unity3D), Arduino, Processing, MaxMSP,
at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design
openFrameworks and more. From theatre
University in Halifax, where she teaches
productions to virtual reality games, she
Sculpture, Installation and Public Art.
believes coding isn’t just a collection of “IF” statements, but an opportunity to collaborate
Abraham Anghik Ruben
with people from different disciplines and
Abraham Anghik Ruben was born on November
ask “What if?”
26, 1951, in the hamlet of Paulatuk, located in
www.lalaineulitdestajo.com
the great expanse of the Canadian Western
45
Arctic. His early years were spent in the many
Experimental Video organized by the Walker
small camps that were scattered along the
Art Center, Minnesota. Tam is a recipient of
coast, where game and trapping was plentiful.
various grants and awards, including the
At the age of eight, the Canadian
Grand Marnier Video Fellowship from the
government removed Abraham and his
Film Society of Lincoln Center (New York) and
younger brother and sister from his parents
the Best Documentary Feature at Tel Aviv
and placed them in a Residential School.
LGBT Film Festival. From 2004 to 2011, Tam
Upon leaving residential school, he took a
taught in the Department of Visual Arts at
trip to Fairbanks, to the University of Alaska.
the University of Victoria.
Here he studied design. Abraham had his first solo exhibition in
Elaine Whittaker
1977 at the Pollock Gallery in Toronto. His
Inspired by an aesthetic in which art, science,
works are in many corporate and public
medicine, and ecology intersect, Elaine
collections including the Smithsonian in
Whittaker considers biology as contemporary
Washington DC, National Gallery, The Art
art practice. Her artworks are based principally
Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario
in installation, sculpture, painting, and digital
Museum, just to name a few. His sculptures
imagery. She has exhibited nationally and
have been collected by 32 public museums
internationally in art and science galleries
and galleries internationally.
in Canada, Mexico, Italy, UK, Ireland, China, South Korea, Australia, and the U.S. Artworks
46
Ho Tam
have been featured in digital galleries and in
Born in Hong Kong, Ho Tam is a media/visual
literary, academic, and medical periodicals,
artist who received a BA from McMaster
and in William Myers’ book BioArt: Altered
University and an MFA from Bard College
Realities, published by Thames & Hudson.
(NY). Tam has exhibited in public galleries
She is currently artist-in-residence at the
and alternative spaces across Canada,
Ontario Science Centre and at the Pelling
including the Canadian Museum of
Laboratory for Augmented Biology
Contemporary Photography (2001). Over 15
(University of Ottawa). She is a recipient of
of his experimental film/video works are in
grants from the Canada Council for the Arts,
circulation including screenings at Centre
the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts
Pompidou, Paris, Toronto International
Council, and holds a BFA (York University,
Film Festival, Yamagata International
Toronto), and Visual Art Diploma (Toronto
Documentary Film Festival and the travelling
School of Art), and a BA (Anthropology,
exhibition Magnetic North: Canadian
Carleton University, Ottawa).
Ho Tam, In the Dark, 2004, video, 6 minutes. Collection of the artist.
47
48
List of Works 49
Stephen Andrews, Facsimile, Part II (details), 1991, graphite, beeswax, oil, Rhoplex, plywood, mahogany, and paper piano roll, 40.5 x 20.3 cm (each. Collection of Oakville Galleries, purchased with the support of the Elizabeth L. Gordon Art Program of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, 1992
50
Stephen Andrews
Alison Humphrey
Facsimile, Part II 1991
Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic 2017
graphite, beeswax, oil, Rhoplex, plywood,
Collaborators: Caitlin Fisher, Steven J.
mahogany, and paper piano roll
Hoffman and LaLaine Ulit-Destajo
40.5 x 20.3 cm (each)
motion-tracked interactive projections,
Collection of Oakville Galleries, purchased
science fiction
with the support of the Elizabeth L. Gordon
144 x 144cm
Art Program of the Walter and Duncan
Collection of the artist
Gordon Foundation, 1992 Kim Morgan Ruth Cuthand
Sigh 2016
Hantavirus 2011
installation
glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass
Originally commissioned and produced by
63.5 x 48.3 cm
Artpace San Antonio, with additional funding
Collection of Karen Brouwers
from Arts Nova Scotia 12.2 x 4 m
Ruth Cuthand
Collection of the artist
Influenza 2008 glass beads, paint on suede backing
Abraham Anghik Ruben
65 x 48 cm
Kublualuk; The Right of Passage 2013/2014
The Saskatchewan Arts Board Permanent
bronze, 1/9
Collection
75 x 52 x 37 cm Kipling Gallery Collection
Ruth Cuthand Syphilis 2009
Ho Tam
quillwork, paint on suede backing
In the Dark 2004
65 x 48 cm
video, 6 minutes
The Saskatchewan Arts Board Permanent
Collection of the artist
Collection Elaine Whittaker Ruth Cuthand
I Caught it at The Movies 2013
Tuberculosis 2011
Petri dishes, digital images, mylar, gouache,
glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass
agar, Halobacterium sp. NRC-1
63.5 x 48.3 cm
812.8 x 121.9 x 5.1 cm
Collection of Marnie Schreiber
Collection of the artist Elaine Whittaker Shiver 2015 2300 petri dishes, grown salt crystals, wool, fishing wire, vinyl print, pipette tips, wire 2.6 x 1.5 x 1.5 m Collection of the artist 51
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Public Notice Š 2018 The Robert McLaughlin Gallery 72 Queen Street, Civic Centre Oshawa, ON L1H 3Z3 rmg.on.ca
Curator: Sonya Jones Graphic Design: Sam Mogelonsky Photo Credits: Toni Hafkenscheid Additional photo credits: Adam Schreiber p. 17, David Williams p. 20, 21 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Public Notice (Oshawa, Ont.) Public notice : Stephen Andrews, Ruth Cuthand, Alison Humphrey, Kim Morgan, Abraham Anghik Ruben, Ho Tam, Elaine Whittaker / curated by Sonya Jones. Catalogue of an exhibition held at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery from September 15, 2018 to January 13, 2019. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-989186-00-8 (PDF) 1. Art, Canadian--21st century--Exhibitions. 2. Diseases in art-Exhibitions. 3. Exhibition catalogs. I. Jones, Sonya, 1981-, writer of added commentary, organizer II. Robert McLaughlin Gallery, issuing body, host institution III. Title. N6545.6.P83 2018
709.71074’71356
C2018-904210-9
Following Page: Kim Morgan, Sigh (detail), 2016, installation, 12.2 x 4 m. Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio, with additional funding from Arts Nova Scotia. Collection of the artist 53
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