Unusual Migration – E-Program / Printed Matter

Unusual Migration is an exploration of the places and ways in which organic and human-built environments overlap. The work incorporates photography, video and installation to gather, interpret and re-use historical and structural elements from an abandoned Manitoba grain shed. The artist situates her findings as an installation within the context of the gallery, offering viewers a multisensory experience in which to consider place and displacement.

Unusual Migration is part of a larger two-year project entitled SHED, which examines a semi-rural habitat facing suburban encroachment, on the edge of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The starting point for this artistic research involved an exploration into a foxtail colonization of forested land under suburban threat. The foxtails were photographed and printed on large sheets of vellum paper. Next the photo-based media was installed in the shed, whereby the artist wove cut up strips of images into the walls of the existing architecture. Using video, the artist documented changes over time, referencing weather, birds, insects and animals as a way of speaking to a shifting landscape.

This research gives shape to the installation Unusual Migration, in which the artist proposes buildings as transitional structures with skins that are both fragile and resilient. The project asks the viewer to consider architectural systems as something living within other systems, in an ever-changing relationship.