Toronto Biennial of Art

What Water Knows, The Land Remembers

As part of the Toronto Biennial of Art from March 26 to June 5, 2022, MOMENTA is co-presenting two projects that first took shape in the 2021 edition of the biennale “Sensing Nature”.

Ts̱ēmā Igharas and Erin Siddall

Great Bear Money Rock, 2021-2022

Great Bear Money Rock (2021–2022) is part of a larger research project being conducted by Ts̱ēmā Igharas and Erin Siddall exploring their shared interest in transmuting traumas of colonial extraction. In 2019, Ts̱ēmā and Erin went to Délįnę in Sahtu Dene Territories to seek passage to Port Radium, an abandoned uranium mine on the other side of Great Bear Lake (the eighth largest freshwater reserve in the world). Led by their Dene guides, they traveled 265 kilometers by boat to the mine where they gathered materials and audiovisual elements that laid the groundwork for their response. The journey was pivotal for both artists, not only in the work to follow but in their spiritual connection to the power of the land and lake.

To learn more about the project, click here

Susan Schuppli

Learning from Ice, 2019 – ongoing

Learning from Ice (2019-ongoing) is a multi-year project that investigates how different knowledge practices respond to climate change. In 2019, Susan Schuppli, drawing on her research into ice core science, presented the first iteration of a documentary film that considers how glacial ice acts as a material witness to global warming. From volcanic ash spewed thousands of years ago to the black carbon deposits of industrialization and, more recently, greenhouse gases, glacial ice sheets have been systematically recording evidence of these processes. Footage was shot in circumpolar research centres that focus on ice, including archival documentation, research interviews, laboratory experimentation, and fieldwork. Participating centres include the Canadian Ice Core Archive, Oregon State University Ice Core and Quaternary Geochemistry Lab, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Alberta, and the University of San Diego.

To learn more about the project, click here