Watermark* November 11 – 16
Gallery 115, Visual Arts, University of Ottawa, 100 Laurier Ave
Reception: Tuesday, November 12, 6 – 9 PM (use Cumberland Street entrance)
You are invited to reach up and add an impression of your hand-print to a cumulative community mural on the gallery walls.
Using paints provided, add colour to your hand then reach as high as you can on the wall and make your mark! Hand painting station provided.
Statement:
Over the last few years I have been documenting the unusual height of spring flooding on the Ottawa River near where I live, including evidence of the high-water mark left across local vegetation as the waters recede. With Watermark I invite others to share my new awareness of extreme weather conditions and join with me in creating a mural of handprints around the gallery wall at approximately the two meter mark. Two meters is the average height above normal that the Ottawa River reached at its peak in my area this spring. Recreating this mark by reaching up the wall allows us to physically register our presence within the height of local flooding while at the same time signaling through our cumulate show of hands the potential of our collective agency in the face of environmental crisis.
Wa-ter-mark (def)
- The line marking the level reached by a body of water
- A distinguishing symbol that identifies identity, genuineness, value
Where do we fit as individuals in the climate change crisis?
How are we impacted?
How can we make a mark against the flood of extreme effects impacting our planet today?
You are invited to reach up and add an impression of your hand-print to a cumulative community mural on the gallery walls.
Using paints provided, add colour to your hand then reach as high as you can on the wall and make your mark! Hand painting station provided.
*We acknowledge that this event is taking place on land that is part of the unceded and unsurrendered Traditional Territory of the Algonquin people. We honour the Algonquin people and elders whose ancestors have occupied this territory since time immemorial and whose culture has nurtured and continue to nurture this land and its people.