ROW – Reflections on Water at Touchstones Museum

Deb Thompson's Nonlinear Resource Exhibition in Nelson, BC, Canada

Oct 3, 2009

"ROW: Reflections on Water" uses a fresh curatorial style to convey historical & present context, varied art installations & film narratives with subtlety & complexity.

The traditional linear design of a museum exhibition would take the story of West Kootenay’s fresh, clean water and progress from a chronological or culturally codified starting point—the last Ice Age, a moment in the hydrological cycle, or the date when the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers were dammed—to present-day issues in an orderly sequential fashion. Instead, Deb Thompson selected artifacts and combines them with works from nine artists and filmmakers. The result is a complex, engaging and multi-layered narrative.

"Art is political. It brings forward the voice of its maker or in the case of a thematic group show ... of many. Art carries the potential to transform the way in which we perceive our world. Art does not provide answers, rather it stirs us deeply to question that which we assumed we knew. Art provides a crossing, like the rowboat in ROW, from a familiar shore to one not yet known." — Deb Thompson, Curator.

Nothing sparks controversy in the Columbia-Kootenay region like water, harkening to when provincial premier W.A.C. Bennett, signed international treaties which dammed the Columbia and Kootenay river systems and destroyed entire communities and rare arable farmland. The present government’s plans to divert water into Independent Power Projects (or IPPs), especially in terms of unresolved First Nation issues and land settlements, provoke similar outrage.

Initiation and Purification

A traditional circa 1955 watercolour by Walter Bayliss of an unknown stream on Kootenay Lake's East Shore begins the exhibit.

Patrick White's marble statues of Ghost Fish evoke species of salmon which have been lost and are being artificially sustained.

A selection of handmade christening gowns from the fin de siècle era, the City of Nelson’s origins, each with tiny perfect stitches and fancy handwork, represent baptism by water, a purification and initiation ritual.

Filmmaker, Nancy Rosenblum's video installation Bathing in Ecstasy — Water, Bath and Ritual intimately reveals the bathing rituals of area residents. Each person describes what water and bathing means to them, not just for cleansing, relaxation, personal time and encounters with friends and lovers, but also connection with history, nature and personal spirituality. The documentary includes treks to natural hot springs and the Brilliant Dam.

Vessels

The central space is held by a lap stark cedar rowboat from the 1940s handmade by Clarence W. Walton of Walton Boatworks in Nelson, BC. Everything about it is sleek and gleaming from the wood to the burnished brass nailheads. It clearly evokes the quality of water as a form of carriage and floating above the surface.

Vintage water containers—pitchers, jugs, and even crates. Not only do we construct vessels to carry us safely across water, but to carry water safely for us. We, also, are vessels of water.

Water as Medium

Karen Rice's series of oils depict the surface reflections on water. The artist describes life near the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington State where her father once worked. She explains how the Cold War mentality meant that her father could never speak about it, but the truth with regards to toxicity emerged after the facility became defunct. We no longer know what water contains.

Next to it, are Boukje Elzinga’s elegantly composed representational paintings of details selected from clean, free-flowing streams. She narrows in on ice and thaws.

Transformation from Element to Resource

Destanne Norris' atelier style oil painting, Temperance, shows the alchemy of balance: one element, water, on which is juxtaposed its polarity, fire.

Refractions of Light

Waterfall, the digital film by Chris Welsby, begins with a clear lens on a waterfall filtered through a glass partition. As droplets fall, sparkling hexagons of refracted light break up the image. Welsby explores how our vision is corrupted by shields which distance us from nature.

Connections and Byways

Tanya Pixie Johnson’s four Riverspines mixed media wall montages maps the river's edge through a central graphite drawing of bones, flowers, and insects laid out like a spine of Rorschach inkblots. These are incorporated in settings built from found objects ranging from topographical maps and car horns, to hand crotched doilies.The friezes transfer "the imagery from the horizontal axis of the land to the vertical axis of the body."

First Nations

Marilyn James recites a Sinixt creation myth about coyote. The Sinixt were declared 'extinct' by the Canadian government in the same year that the Columbia Treaty which destroyed so much of their land was negotiated.

ROW: Reflections on Water includes a cultural forum on October 8th, 2009 with keynote speaker, Robert Sanford, Canadian chair of the United Nations International Decade “Water for Life”; Julie Castonguay, artist and forester, and Eileen Delehanty-Pearkes, author. This "presentation of art, activism and conversation of global to local issues around water" will commence with a free Touchstones Museum Gallery Tour at 6 pm, then proceed to the Hume Hotel across the street at 7 pm, for the Keynote Presentation and Panel Discussion. Admission to the Forum is $3 for members and $5 for non-members.

The copyright of the article ROW – Reflections on Water at Touchstones Museum in Special Art Gallery Exhibits is owned by Simone Keiran. Permission to republish ROW – Reflections on Water at Touchstones Museum in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.