found/held

To accompany the found/held exhibition we produced this publication to highlight aspects of each artists’ research to situate the exhibition in context with their larger practices.

found/held presents work by Alana Bartol (Calgary), Lindsay Dobbin (Bay of Fundy), and Ursula Handleigh (Halifax), and Pavitra Wickramasinghe (Montreal). Considering these works through a drawing lens, this exhibition investigates the artists’ use of concrete materials—water, air, metal, paper—to capture phenomena—resonance, breath, energy, the fold. 

Inspired by reading about the disappearing skill of wave pilots in the Marshall Islands—specially trained in the ancient art of reading the waves by feel and sight—Wickramasinghe’s Coral bones/La mer are a return to these innate navigation skills and of the body to the environment. Dobbin’s practice of drumming the surface of the Bay of Fundy is reflected Arrival, in which they build a spacious soundscape with two tones acting as wave cycles. With her video reading wild lands, Bartol re-imagines dowsing as a technology for remediation of contaminated land.

Lastly, Handleigh uses experiential photography and alternative processes of image making to record personal histories, such as I can feel you forgetting, which captures both the impressions of her hands and the humidity of her breath.