Artist Statement:
”Salmon Room”
“We don’t exist here without our fish” - Ernest Alfred, a hereditary chief of the Namgis nation and fish farm protestor. This is a truth for many communities up and down the Pacific coast. As it is true for resident orcas, bears, wolves, eagles, songbirds and even the riverside cedar forests, which salmon carcases fertilize. If our ecosystems and our communities rely on salmon, then wild salmon horrors are our horrors too. The sea lice and diseases propagated in open net fish pens flow into the Salish sea infecting wild salmon population. In the pens, infection contorts the skeletons of Atlantic salmon turning them into haunting, gasping creatures covered in open wounds. They are the
horrifying embodiment of unchecked human greed.
Bio:
The salmon Room was created through a collaboration of students from Esquimalt high school, Settler allies of the indigenous led fish farm protests and members of the University of Victoria teacher education program.
Artist Statement:
”This Room”
This piece is inspired by the contrasting narratives within the environmental movement. Central to the room is a TV and couch giving participants a chance to relax. The room is split in two around this scene, so two contrasting narratives can be palpably felt. One side of the room depicts the narrative of chaotic blaming and shaming, while the other side depicting a narrative of unity and critical hope. An invitation to paint allows the rooms inner dialogue to evolve as people add to the conversation.
Bio:
This room was a collaboration between Antonia Paquin and me (Will O’Connell). Antonia is a writer and outspoken environmental activist. Her painting and poetry shed a new uplifting perspective on existence and environmental guilt. I approached this room as a member of some proactive environmental communities, including the one behind Waste Land, which have brought me a lot of joy and relieved some of my own climate guilt.