AFTER THE FIRE
Refuge: Après l’incendie / After the Fire
Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment, September 26 to November 28, 2021
Between 2017 and 2021 I investigated the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire in Western Canada. During this period, I witnessed some of the most devastating wildfire seasons on record for the province of British Columbia (2017, 2018, and 2021). My artistic approach to this subject seeks to reveal diverse perspectives, act as a critical foil to dominant media representations, and open up space for the consideration of practices of resiliency, including the reintegration of fire within fire-adapted ecosystems.
As we continue to experience radical shifts in climate patterns, discussions of wildfires have quickly become a global issue. Through an aesthetic examination of the indelible marks that wildfire and its control leave on the landscape, I hope to address questions of how to live more cooperatively with fire in a cultural context. My interest in this subject matter continues, as evidenced by a recent body of work and a separate project page on this website titled Silent Witnesses.
For this installation at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, I selected components from original photographs made at four sites that burned in the Okanagan between 2015 and 2020. Focusing exclusively on the trunks of charred Ponderosa and Lodgepole pine gives the viewer an opportunity to witness the process of regeneration from recently burned forest through varying degrees of regeneration.
Full-colour images adhered to the back wall were complemented by silhouettes of burned trees from around the Okanagan, presented as translucent vinyl cut-outs on the glass itself. Creating a sense of depth within the gallery space, my goal is to simulate the experience of standing in a forest. This technique takes its cues from the art of diorama construction, and other practices of illusion dating back to a time before photography. (video credit: Joanne Gervais)
Crandell Mountain Campground
(fire occurred in 2017, photographed in 2018)
Elephant Hill wildfire, Ashcroft, British Columbia (fire occurred in 2017, photographed in 2018)
Kenow wildfire, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta (fire occurred in 2017, photographed in 2018)
Retardant grid
“Retardant Grid is carefully arranged. In the corners we see distant views, while the middle band on the horizontal axis brings us close up to the land and detritus that have been doused by retardant. From the hillside at the top left to the potato chip bag that makes a droll centrepiece, nothing escapes the chemical as it 'paints' the land. However biodegradable the ammonium phosphate fire inhibitor is, we see how it changes the land for the sake of aerial fire fighters' ability to see where they have sprayed. Rutkauskas's grid is a cipher of how humans always alter what they occupy and use. For example, the stands of trees in the top right and bottom left images appear to be Douglas Fir and evergreen. Seen in summer after being sprayed from the air, however, they are reminiscent of those deciduous conifers such as Tamarack-also found in this region-that change to a brilliant orange and yellow each autumn. We might well wonder whether contemporary technologies that attempt to control wildfire alter the land in ways that are ultimately harmful rather than protective or regenerative.”
- Mark A. Cheetham, Seeing Through Fire
Cahier 02
In conjunction with my exhibition at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment, a bilingual (Français/English) publication featuring texts by Curator Geneviève Chevalier, Art Historian Mark A. Cheetham and Geographer Mathieu Bourbonnais is available.
18 minutes, 43 seconds
This sound recording reproduces a meeting that took place in the forest adjacent to the Grantham Foundation. The voices are those of artist Andreas Rutkauskas and Wabanaki naturalist Michel Durand-Nolett. Apart from being a talented naturalist and expert on Indigenous plant use, Durand-Nolett acted as a wildland forest fire fighter for many years.
During the exhibition, visitors were provided with tablets containing the audio file and encouraged to walk the grounds of the foundation. For the context of this website, the artist’s images serve to illustrate the context. All of the images were made during my month-long residency in December 2020.
Recording and sound design: Bruno Pucella
I would like to thank Michel Durand-Nolett, Michel Paradis & Bernard Landriault, and Geneviève Chevalier for enabling this work to materialize.