Climate change has presented humanity with the most profound and urgent challenge ever faced. Reflecting upon my understanding of rising environmental concerns, I use my practice to combine art with research to address how we interact and perceive the natural world.
Shannon Taylor-Jones is an interdisciplinary artist working in Toronto and London, Ontario with a BFA from OCAD University. She is a current resident artist at Good Sport, an art collective, gallery, and studio space in London, Ontario. She works with painting, textile, and organic matter; her creative practice is an exploration into the interdependencies of life, decay, and grief as biological and creative processes. Existing as the layered (un)domestication of interwoven life forms and as fragments of larger processes. Through collaborations of care, the inevitability of transience remains; detritus as the answer to one question and the ask of another.
Arabella Young is an emerging Canadian painter who looks for the essence and atmosphere of the natural West Coast. Arabella’s contemplative landscapes evoke wonder and curiosity. Through expressive colour and elusive shapes, Arabella depicts the mystery within a forest and the curious space where sea meets land. Low lying fog between thick emerald greenery, light and dark that dance in water reflections, elements of Arabella’s paintings come together to capture the West Coast ethos.
In 2011, ee portal (Elyse & Emilio Portal) initiated their collaboration with the multidisciplinary work, advanced life support unit, at the University of Victoria. As part of the installation the duo deconstructed the space, removing the gallery door to project shadow, a video that documents the movements of a woman (and friend) who was told she would never move her body again after a severe spinal cord injury. In the face of great adversity, she slowly regained access to her body through a movement therapy based on physics and somatic studies, called Feldenkrais. Founder, Moshe Feldenkrais said, “We move according to our perceived self-image.”
TRAction is a dynamic collective of interdisciplinary artists who actively and publicly address issues of climate justice.
Although the projects are primarily facilitated and organized by Melanie Kloetzel and Kevin Jesuino, TRAction expands and contracts to include other interested allies, professionals, scientists, volunteers and artists who work at the intersection of art-making and climate change. Using diverse methods of artistic creation, TRAction addresses complex environmental issues and advocates for climate justice for all humans and species.
Remy Bernier started a new life in 2006. This was the result of a terrible event that would change his life forever: Remy had suffered a stroke. Prior to his accident, he was thriving as an aspiring mountain guide. Now, the right hemisphere of Remy’s body is paralyzed, and his coordination, speech and vision have been affected. He will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He continues to raise the bar in everything he does and has no plans to stop!
In the midst of the 6th Mass Extinction, I take my lead from other-than-humans, usually in the form of urban ecologies, plants and stones. There is some kind of magnetic feeling that draws me towards these beings. I sit and listen. I try to offer them something. My art shares perceptions and feelings of these exchanges, as a kind of antidote to separation.
Alison Beaumont is a multidisciplinary artist living on the traditional and unceded territory of the Sylix Okanagan peoples, her work is primarily focussed on climate awareness and her own experiences of connection to land and ecological sorrow. She hopes through art that she can inspire changes in our daily existence to avert the climate crisis. We all have a part to play, no matter how small. Incrementally changes build, if we preserve our forests and old growth, biodiversity can rebuild, if we consciously consume less, our resources and water can flourish again. Each small act builds and grows, the Earth will survive without us, but we cannot survive if we do not change our actions and ways of knowing and doing.
Philippe Allard vit et travaille à Montréal. Il est titulaire d’un baccalauréat en design graphique de l’université du Québec à Montréal. Ses œuvres ont fait l’objet d’expositions individuelles et collectives au Canada, en France, au Portugal, au Maroc et en Corée du sud. Notons celles présentées au centre Articule, à la Fonderie Darling, à Dare-dare, au Confederation Centre de Charlottetown, ainsi qu’au Musée d’art de Joliette. Ayant à cœur les interventions In situ, Il fut, avec Justin Duchesneau, lauréat du concours de la Place des Arts de Montréal en 2009, récipiendaire du prix d’art public de l’AGAC pour leur installation Courtepointe en 2014 et auteur de l’œuvre publique permanente Le Joyau royal et le mile doré pour le bureau d’art publique de la ville de Montréal en 2016. En août 2019, il a fait partie de la publication internationale de Thames & Hudson Hundred sculptors of tomorrow.
Gary Crosby is a very prolific artist. When you think about that statement, it would explain a lot about Gary. He likes to think of himself as an artist on a lifelong quest. To create a piece of artwork that needs no explanation. It is a work of art that grabs you and holds you in its tight grip, and you have a profound understanding of what is meant by the art. Climate Change is the largest globally destructive issue that the world is facing today. He is using his art to bring about change and provide an understanding of the issues of Climate Change. We are all in this together! We must all work together to heal the world.
