𝔽𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥; 𝔹𝕖𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝟙𝟚 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝟚𝟜 – 𝔹𝕖𝕕𝕋𝕚𝕞𝕖
the plumb, Toronto, Spring 2024

Organized by Erica Stocking, Ella Dawn McGeough, and Amanda Boulos, the exhibition unfolded over the space of both exhibition and event series to ask:
What forms (in their many forms) do beds make it possible to imagine? What grows from their fertile soil? What weird wanderings does a drowsy mind follow? What conventions undo themselves when lying prone, released from the vertical “I”—the upright standing I, the individual I, the restless I, the I who scans the horizon in search of somewhere else; when we are in a hammock, a burrow, a mat in the corner, some warm patch of grass, or soft sand, where we cannot be blown down by the storms of history because we are already hugging the earth, settled by gravity’s pull, dreaming the world into existence. What then? What thoughts? What emotions? What sensations and perceptions? What possibilities? What strange affinities nestle into and around us?

This exhibition goes hand-on-hand with my doctoral project, “We Change Everything We Touch and Everything We Touch Changes,” which assembles interconnected texts, quotations, graphic content, and sculptural works to ask: what forms (in their many forms) do beds make it possible to imagine? What grows from their fertile soil? What weird wanderings does a drowsy mind follow? What does a tired and/or sick body deem important or irrelevant? What conventions undo themselves when lying prone, released from the vertical “I”—the upright standing I, the individual I, the restless I, the I who scans the horizon in search of somewhere else; when we are in a hammock, a burrow, a mat in the corner, some warm patch of grass, or soft sand, where we cannot be blown down by the storms of history because we are already hugging the earth, settled by gravity’s pull, dreaming the world into existence. What then? What thoughts? What emotions? What sensations and perceptions? What possibilities? What strange affinities nestle into and around us?

*pdf: “I’m on Fire”

The Witch_1942, 2019-2022
installation views from goodtime, The Plumb, Toronto (Fall 2022) and Tools ‘n’ Shit (Round 1, 2, 3) (2019-2022), Goodwater Gallery, Toronto

~14,600 pieces of grapevine charcoal made over the course of two-years in Goodwater’s fireplace, drawing material for a lifetime. The work includes several tools necessary for production, installation, storage and a special edition Goodwater Mailer for the exhibition, goodtime.

I wrote a featured essat about goodwater/goodtime for Momus: It’s All About Good Timing: Goodwater at the Plumb

production assistance: Melissa Bleecker and John Goodwin
grape vine: Sandra Rechico, Callum Schuster, Amanda White
photo documentation: Alison Postma, Colin Miner, John Goodwin

The Future is Dark...I think
August 2022, La Datcha, Berlin

Following years of coorespondence and much delay, during the summer of 2022, Maggie Groat & I each held independant residencies at La Datcha working closely with Jessica Groome and the space itself, a Schrebergarten located in Volkspark Rehberge (Berlin Wedding).

La Datcha was transformed through a whirlwind of activity: sweeping, raking, weeding, watering, observing, playing, searching for spiders, renovating, gathering, assembling, watching, arriving, and making.

The culmination of our collaborative activities resulted in the exhibition The Future is Dark... I Think hosted by Project Space Festival Berlin.

I continued the “_~form_” series with site~form_willkommen, a goopy gate covered in salt dough mixed with, blackberry, plant material, banana, cane sugar, beer, Aperol, pinot noir, and Baba Jaga spirits; dream~form_Baba Jaga, a very long-lasting jute and beeswax candle; and several site~form_moon-milks, small conglomerate assortments of rocks painted with milk paint and moth bait, an all day slurp-fest for wasps and slugs.

︎ exhibition poster & text

image credit: Colin Miner

Amber Falls
May 2022, Kikospace, Toronto

There was a picnic on its surface, this pearl, a magic skin, this mystical shell, a gleaming amber moon. Day poured into night, light into darkness, labour into pleasure. Wine glasses left rings. Salad dressing splashed. Someone spilled the salt. They had worked too hard. Walked too far, too fast. Feeling spacey, bodies shifted position and for an hour—an age—everything changed. Carefully, they took off habits, put down jobs, moved beyond limits of analysis, crossed distances of difference. And together, fell—curious, in dazzling arrays of particles, bursts, clusters. Chimes rang on the wind. Everyone asked, was that a moth or a butterfly?
This installation follows-up on the collaborative project, Bright Eyes with Stefana Fratila and Kiko Sounds, in which we created a 100 metre long sound bath + copper installation in the breezeway outside the Art Gallery of York University for the summer months of 2019.

Instead of an opening, DJs Crip Time, Cam Lee, Snail Space, and I hosted GUMMY UNIVERSE: TANGfastic Dance Party with yummy-gummy snacks c/o @spool_oven. 

Manden Murphy contributed two articles on “The Resident” which will subsequently be reprinted in the upcoming, inaugeral issue of the “The Mercury”.

image credit: Alison Potsma
production support: Claudia Rick