Interface

Interface (2023) Cut paper on poplar, 103 cm x 74 cm x 14 cm.

Stalks

Stems (2023) Charred poplar, paper, and painted balsa on dowelling, 80 cm x 240 cm x 30 cm.

WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWait

WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWait (2022)

About

When a barrier draws attention to itself, it might be because we should be careful of what dangerous or fragile thing it is guarding. Garden stakes mark vulnerable shoots with distinctive makers, acting as supportive bollards buffering careless feet and anchoring them as they shoot up towards the sky.

My work WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWait uses excessively tall bollards hung with colourful cotton bunting to guard the garden at ARTSPLACE. 21 ten-foot-tall banners encircle the bushes and roses. Each hangs from 7 twelve-foot poplar bollards. The banners are a bright high-vis red-orange, marking the outline of the garden’s perimeter. The fluttering banners encourage stopping, waiting, perhaps taking the time, opening curiosity.

WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWait makes room for this pause, drawing attention past itself and onto the garden it is made to care for. To defend ARTSPLACE’s garden, WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWait creates a permeable barrier, filtering the view of the roses and bushes. If this small friction intrigues passers-by, I hope they search for what is worth defending. Caring is contagious. Pausing and waiting for a moment passes this practice on to ourselves allowing for a momentary rest.

Sketch for WaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWaitWait (2022)

bartly qartly partly

bartly qartly partly (2022) Installation View

About

B Mosher has been tinkering with a series of lighthearted poetical drawings and playful sculptural pieces. This work often exists between a spectrum between cloudedness and clarity. bartly qartly partly is a chance to playfully arrange these graphic drawings and simple kinetic sculptures for show. The work found in bartly qartly partly is often unstable and light. They remain precariously nimble, needing to constantly recalibrate to the forces around them.

Though they did not realize it then, B’s practice of making quick doodle-like drawings and delicate, vulnerable sculptural works would become an affirmative and stabilizing practice throughout the swell of the pandemic reality. Surrounded by a fog of unknowable precarity, they kept their hands busy, working their creative practice into knots.

Speculative Plants of the Symbiopocene

Process Sketches

About the Plants

When people speculate about the future, we often place humans at the centre of our imaginings. By centring on the endeavours of our species, it is difficult to see beyond ourselves. With Plants of the Year 5850, I am playing the part of speculative evolutionary botanist, dreaming about what potential adaptive and evolutionary tactics may benefit endangered plants found in my local area of Mi’kma’ki. Each of these plant sculptures act out snippets of my invented evolutionary narratives.

The tallest of the three, Slender Panic-Iris, conexus prismicum represents an evolutionary hybridization of two plants, Iris prismatica Slender Iris and Panicum dichotomiflorum Panic Grass. Both of these endangered plants are being threatened due to habitat loss. During the intervening millennia, I imagine them resisting anthropological neglect by joining together for survival.

The shortest sculpture, Land-Pennywort, Duro umbellata, depicts the water-dwelling Pennywort, Hydrocotyle umbellata after tenaciously adapting to life on land. The endangered Hydrocotyle umbellata lives on the edges of lakes in Kejimkujik National Park. As lake contours shift and eventually flood with ocean water, the Pennywort may adopt sturdier stalks to escape by acclimating to growing on dry land.

Another plant finding new potential footholds is our provincial lichen Blue Felt Lichen or Pectenia plumbea. Their invisible underground mycelia have discovered methods to break down soil contaminants to give the rest of the lichen strength. This strength enables their base of overlapping scales called squamulose to retain water. This storage capacity allows them to engorge with rainwater for the long dry periods. Now the Blue Felt Lichen can grow inflated bases and striking tall, slender fruiting bodies. These fruits take on the hue of copper found in the soil from agricultural pesticides.

About The Site

Annapolis Royal as a site has a rich history of mastery over the natural world. The sublime beauty of the historic gardens on George Street demonstrates a domineering relationship between the keen controlling eye and the perpetual wildness of plants. Beyond Victorian elegance inflicted on plants, Annapolis Royal residents of the early 20th Century carefully crafted patents for controlling pests and preserving crops. Of the four patents granted to residents of Annapolis Royal, three are concerning the preservation of crops by poisoning insects and fungi with harmful chemicals or copper-based pesticides (copper-sulphide).

My project embarks from our recent anthropocentric history by tracing the entanglements of questions such as: What plant species are being actively protected by control and what suffers neglect? How can a humble and mutualistic relationship with nature be formed? And, can we learn from potential evolutionary strategies concerned with survival after a climate catastrophe?