https://vimeo.com/552964946
Exhibition Documentation by Sarah Fuller, 2021
Exhibition dates: May 7 – June 11, 2021
Please review our COVID-19 procedures in full here.
Virtual artist talk: Saturday May 22, 2pm CDT
ASL interpretation is available by request for Deaf attendees. Requests must be submitted by 5pm on Wednesday May 19 to askmartha@printmakers.mb.ca.
The virtual artist talk will be delivered via Zoom. Zoom’s automatic closed captioning function will be enabled during the presentation. To access this event, join the Zoom meeting at 2pm CDT on May 22 by clicking this link: https://zoom.us/j/95843443414 or by using this meeting ID: 958 4344 3414. You do not need to download Zoom ahead of time, but you may do so at https://zoom.us.
This event will be recorded. Please turn off your video when joining the Zoom meeting if you prefer not to be recorded.
Exhibition text by KC Adams
These events are free to attend and open to the public.
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Martha Street Studio is pleased to present Subconscious Terrain, a solo exhibition by Tracy Peters (MB).
Subconscious Terrain invites visitors into a metaphorical bog of moss images that situates them between a resting ground and a place of unrest. Immersive photo-based installations illuminate Sphagnum moss within physical and imaginative space, intersecting human and non-human ecosystems. This exhibition is a meditation on the life and death of Sphagnum habitats and their capacity for resuscitation and preservation. The delicate prints that inhabit the gallery embody the fragility of threatened bog environments, while attempting to elevate the vitality of peatlands as mitigators of global warming and climate change.
Artist statement:
In my interdisciplinary practice, I am drawn to threatened habitats that are in the midst of cataclysmic change. What deeply motivates me is resilient behaviour in ecosystems that enable their adaptation to human intervention. Often, I carry out my work and research in natural environments where unpredictable weather and ecological surprises challenge me to adapt my studio production to biological processes.
In my recent work, I use photographic materials in collaboration with natural forces to collect impressions from the passage of time, light and weather in eroding landscapes. I wove giant photographs into an abandoned grain shed, and embedded light-sensitive paper in a stone beach as witness to the effects of climate on the ecosystem. These allow me to communicate with the environment in an attempt to understand its physical knowledge. Through these haptic interventions, I respond to the wind and water in ways that parallel those of my body, such as breathing, pulse and consciousness.
Subconscious Terrain is a new project that builds on my long-term study of architecture in threatened environments through the creation of multi-media installations about Sphagnum moss. This work investigates the bog as a metaphorical skin–how sphagnum moss functions as a protective blanket that envelops its habitat to protect and nurture it.
My research incorporates themes such as restoration, preservation, fragility and survival–all characteristics of a bog. The installations investigate perspective, illusion, and depth to immerse the viewer in a bog so that they can look up to where the ground meets the sky. They are an attempt to raise consciousness of peatlands as a living solution to slow down the climate crisis.
Tracy Peters is a multidisciplinary artist based in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 Territory. Her work examines the entanglements of human and non-human processes in response to eroding landscapes and environmental/climate crises. Peters has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Winnipeg Arts Council. She has attended residencies which include a partnership between Void Gallery and The Social Studios and Gallery in Derry, Northern Ireland; the ArtCenter/South Florida-MAWA artist exchange program in Miami, Florida; the Plug In ICA Summer Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba; the Independent Imaging Retreat (Film Farm) in Mount Forest, Ontario; and The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. Her work has exhibited across Canada, in Europe and Australia.
The artist would like to thank the Manitoba Arts Council for their generosity in supporting this project, the University of Manitoba WIN Herbarium, biologist Dr. Carla Zelmer, KC Adams for writing the response, and everyone at Martha Street Studio who made this exhibition possible.
Connect with Peters online at www.tracypeters.ca and on Instagram @tracy_a_peters.