MAG exhibition examines agriculture and Canada’s relationship to land
Curators Carolyn Jervis and Theo Donovan invite visitors to reflect on agriculture, land and whose histories are represented.
A sign outside the Mitchell Art Gallery advertising the MAG's free admission. Photo credit: Riley Travis
On Jan. 16, the Mitchell Art Gallery (MAG) opened its newest exhibition, From Where the Grain Itself Can Speak, which will run until March 28, featuring works by multiple artists, including a piece developed by former Gene Zwozdesky artist-in-residence, Slinko.
The exhibition examines the relationship between land, agriculture and the people who live on it. Curators Carolyn Jervis and Theo Donovan encourage visitors to reflect on the past and future of agriculture, as well as their own relationship to the land.
“All the work deals with history in some way,” said Jervis. From the development of monoculture crops to Slinko’s work, Jervis said, “thinking about the Holodomor and the legacy of barring access from wheat as aggression or an act of war.”
The exhibition is also looking at the future.
“It is interesting to think about the works and consider how climate change will affect our relationship to agriculture,” said Jervis, “one of the things scientists have talked about is that were going to have to think about farming differently, so what does the past offer us in terms of thinking about those methods?”
Slinko’s work along the back wall of the exhibition was partially completed during their time at MacEwan.
“This is an example of an artwork that took 10 minutes to make,” said Jervis, “but when you dig deeper, it involved four months of building the rig and two years of research.”
Jervis said the sketch happened at MacEwan, and “two years later, the finished artwork kind of comes home.”
The exhibition brings together contemporary and historical work, featuring work from two 20th-century Canadian landscape painters, Lars Haukaness and William Kuralek.
Indigenous artist Morgan Possberg’s work is also on display, and is “an important part of the story,” Donovan said.
Possberg’s work connects to a conversation within the exhibition about traditional representations of land in Canadian art, Jervis said. Donovan said those representations have often excluded Indigenous presence.
“In Canada, historically, landscape paintings have such a problem of being this imagery of open vastness with no sign of people there. Who was there? The Indigenous people,” said Donovan.
Jervis said if there was one thing she wanted visitors to take away, it was this: “There are lots of examples of big, dominant systems or ways of thinking in which we’re told there is no other option … part of what I think artists offer is helping us imagine other possibilities.”
