The Robert McLaughlin Gallery believes we have a responsibility to participate in the creation and maintenance of a healthy community. For over a year, we have been working with community members and partners on an initiative called The Neighbours Project to explore how we could extend care to some of our closest neighbours who have experience with housing precarity or homelessness, including those working to reduce barriers and offer direct support. The work itself was grounded in relationship building and took many forms, including closed onsite events and participation in community meetings and other offsite activities. From December 9, 2023 to February 18, 2024, The Neighbours Project will take up physical space at the RMG as an installation in Gallery A.
At this event, we invite the wider RMG community to join us in our creative visioning and accountability. Here’s what you can expect at this event:
Stories from community leaders with lived experience of homelessness
Interactive art-making with The LivingRoom Community Art Studio
Food + conversation with project partners, collaborators, and other community members
The Neighbours Project is co-produced by representatives of the RMG, Back Door Mission, The Gap Committee, and The LivingRoom Community Art Studio. It will be installed in Gallery A from December 9, 2023 – February 18, 2024.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery believes we have a responsibility to participate in the creation and maintenance of a healthy community. For over a year, we have been working with community members and partners on an initiative called The Neighbours Project. The goal was to explore how we could extend care to some of our closest neighbours who have experience with housing precarity or homelessness, including those working to reduce barriers to services and offer direct support.
In this phase of The Neighbours Project, we have created an installation that transforms the gallery into an active workshop space. It is a place to rest, make, reflect, and dream up better systems of care. The Neighbours Project aims to support creative community development through art-making experiences that foster connection and personal well-being.
We encourage drop-in art-making throughout the entire run of the exhibition and are thrilled to welcome the LivingRoom for facilitated art-making sessions on select Fridays; you can read more about The Neighbours Project ART HIVE with the LivingRoom by clicking this link. Come make art with us!
Installation of The Neighbours Project at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Photos by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Our Project Framework
The Neighbours Project is…
A collaborative effort from within the gallery to learn about the networks of support that exist outside the gallery to support individuals who do not have safe or stable housing.
An expression of hope about the vital role of the art gallery in our community today and tomorrow.
A long-term commitment to trust and relationship building with our neighbours.
Starting in 2022, The Neighbours Project looked like…
Hosting onsite group tours + tea parties with the Back Door Mission’s Wednesday Women’s Group on September 28, 2022 and August 30, 2023.
Facilitating two internal conversations with RMG staff about homelessness and our intentions for this project in October and November 2022.
Attending monthly Gap Committee meetings throughout 2023.
Hosting two Meet & Greet Brainstorming Sessions with Gap Committee members and Back Door Mission staff and patrons at the gallery in January 2023.
Attending Changing the Face of Homelessness presented by the Gap Committee on April 21, 2023.
Visiting the Back Door Mission with art materials in May and June for drop-in art-making with the Games Club.
Hosting two closed community events, offering lunch + creative workshops, at the gallery on July 30, 2023 and October 4, 2023.
Hosting ongoing project development meetings with our core collaborators and many more conversations and strategy meetings with each other.
The Neighbours Project installation is an opportunity to…
Rest and reflect.
Invite more people into our creative visioning.
Offer warmth and connection in the winter months.
Share our work with you!
Some more context:
We started this project with an understanding that the gallery has a relationship with all of its neighbours. As an institution, we do not exist in isolation. Looking to our immediate surroundings, we started building relationships with two key partners:
Nearby, the Back Door Mission is a hub for support. Offering nourishing meals, access to washrooms and showers, as well as recovery programs and support groups, the Back Door Mission also hosts a range of social service providers who deliver programs directly to clients in a central location.
Meeting monthly in Oshawa and Ajax, The Gap Committee is a collective of individuals and public service organizations with a mission to prevent and end homelessness in Durham Region. It is led by folks who know what it’s like to be unhoused and are passionate about removing barriers and advocating for love and support.
We were honoured to work with community leaders in both of these organizations who are doing incredible grassroots work. This led us to wonder where, if anywhere, the RMG could fit within this system of support.
Inspired by our core collaborators, we learned to appreciate how our space could function as a node within an individual’s social network. We also saw first hand how art has the potential to meet, at least in part, some essential needs: the need for belonging and self-expression.
The gallery is a free space. It is a space to seek quiet and meet friends. It is a space to rest and a space to celebrate. A space to learn and unlearn. But it’s also a space with unwritten social codes. The RMG’s imposing concrete façade and the legacies of privilege and systemic inequity that shape all art institutions have made the gallery an intimidating space too.
With these truths in our pockets, The Neighbours Project has been an effort to listen and learn so as to better understand the needs and desires of our community and take steps towards building relationships grounded in trust.
This installation is inspired by the relationships formed through this process and what we learned over the last year. It also draws on the longstanding community-engaged work that The LivingRoom Community Art Studio has been doing in Durham Region for nearly a decade. We are grateful to have had their support in conceptualizing and making real this exhibition and ART HIVE programming.
Importantly, we entered into this project without a clear outcome in mind. In place of an end goal, we continue to hold the intentions that guided our decision making throughout this project. We want to:
Gain a better awareness of what our neighbours need and want from the gallery;
Develop new ideas about what it means to extend care to our audiences, new and established;
Explore models of partnership and collaboration that prioritize trusting and accountable relationship building above all else.
Join us in celebrating the opening of World-builders, shapeshifters, a group exhibition featuring works by Alex Jacobs-Blum, Kat Brown Akootchook, Kay Nadjiwon, Natalie King, Nishina Shapwaykeesic-Loft, and Sheri Osden Nault.
Remarks will take place in the exhibition at 6:15pm.
From 7-9pm, enjoy a variety of performances and interactive workshops happening throughout the gallery, led by various First Nations, Métis, and Inuit storytellers. Refreshments will be served.
This event is free and open to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
The RMG is an accessible venue. For full information on our facilities, please click here. If you have questions about this event or if there are other ways we can support your participation, please email Erin at [email protected].
The storytellers:
Elder Dorothy Taylor is a Mississauga Ojibwe Elder from Curve Lake First Nation. She is known for her work and traditional teachings about the sacredness of water. She is asked to share traditional knowledge and ceremony within her community and various organizations throughout Peterborough and the surrounding area. She is a hand drummer and singer. Elder Dorothy Taylor is the founder of the Sacred Water Circle, inspired by traditional Indigenous teachings and leading with hope and spiritual courage, the Sacred Water Circle sees a restored relationship between human communities and water. Currently, Dorothy is the Co-Chair of the local United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 on Clean Water and Sanitation sponsored through the Kawartha World Issues Centre. She lives in Curve Lake with her husband Mark and two sons.
Vivian Roy / Giiwed’no kwe (Northwind-Woman) is Wolf Clan and Odawa from the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve. She speaks Anishnabemowin (Ojibway) and has graduated from Sault College of the Applied Arts with a Certificate in Addictions Counselling, Laurentian University with a Bachelor of Social Work, and Wilfred Laurier University with a Master of Social Work. Vivian is a registered social worker, a certified life skills coach, and trainer.
Vivian currently works with First Nation communities around grief, specializing in adolescent and adult grief counseling. Her work is culturally based, using Anishnaabemowin teachings to teach about stages of grief, types of grief, grief circles, blanket exercise, working with traditional medicines, land-based activities, and ceremonies. In Vivian’s spare time she enjoys dancing, beading, and quill work, which she finds very therapeutic. Vivian teaches quillwork using different techniques.
Tamara Sarah Tikisa Takpannie is an artist and advocate originally from Iqaluit, NU, who specializes in beadwork, textiles and kattajaq (throat singing). An urban Inuk based in Ottawa, Takpannie’s bold and feminine artwork reflects her desire to represent the strength and resilience of Inuit women and uphold cultural traditions. Tamara has been throat singing since 2014 and enjoys sharing ancient songs with all peoples in the world.
Samantha Kigutaq-Metcalfe is 19 years old and born and raised in Ottawa. Samantha’s mom’s family is from Arctic Bay, Nunavut and dad’s side of the family is from Nain, Nunatsiavut. Samantha has been throatsinging all her life and it’s something she will continue to learn throughout the rest of her life. Learning new things and sharing them with the Inuit youth she works with in Ottawa is her passion. She will continue to learn every day.
Nikki Soliman is Métis from Sault Ste. Marie and the author of Bubbly Beth, Ants In My Pants, Indig-Enough and Magnificent Magnetic Me. Nikki is also a teacher and administrator with the Durham District School Board and understands the importance of students seeing themselves in the resources used. Prior to working in the DDSB, Nikki taught at Chippewas of the Thames First Nation and Moose Factory Island.
Nimkii (Thunder Man) Osawamick is an Anishinaabe dance artist from Wiikwemkoong, Unceed Territory, located on Manitoulin Island and is a member of the Wolf Clan. Nimkii has been dancing since the age of three years old. Now an active community member in powwow circles, Nimkii is well-known as a lead singer, hoop dancer and champion powwow dancer in the Fancy Dance category. He has travelled extensively across North America, sharing his gift of singing and dancing with the peoples of Turtle Island. Nimkii has previously worked with Nozhem Theatre, Trent University, as a dance artist, opening many doors for him into the performance world. Nimkii is dedicated to the preservation and awareness of his peoples’ culture and history, highlighted in his business DNA STAGE: Dedicated Native Awareness, which helps bridge the cultural gap between First Nations people and inhabitants.
Melody Crowe is a Michi-Saagiig Anishinaabe Woman from Alderville First Nation which is located on the South Shore of Rice Lake, Ontario. She has dedicated her life to creating a deeper understanding and appreciation of First Nation culture, knowledge, language, and history, and has more than 25 years of teaching the Ojibway language to children, youth, adults, and Elders. She works from the place of honouring her Ancestors and honouring the importance of Indigenous Peoples and ways of knowing. In 2007, Melody received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in the preservation of language and culture from the Union of Ontario Indians, and in 2015, the Honouring Our People Award from the Ogemawahi Tribal Council. Melody is also an eagle feather carrier, a jingle dancer, and a photographer.
Lena Recollet is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, she is Anishinaabe from Wikwemikong. Her directorial and writing debut won her the Cynthia Lickers Sage Award from ImagineNative Film + Media Festival. This recognition proved to her that she was a writer, she then went on to win a Native American Music Award for Best Spoken Word Recording. Her comedic debut was on “She Kills Me” aired APTN (2014) and at Camino’s Cabaret (2015) before becoming one of the founding members of Manifest Destiny’s Child. She now writes sketch comedy with four members of the former collective now known as The NDN Act. This decision was made after performing for SketchFest TO last year at the Theatre Centre. In August, Lena was host/MC for the “Anishinaabemowin Conference” in her home community of Wiikwemkoong, where she also featured in night comedy and storytelling. Most recent performances were at: “Indigenous Humour is Knowledge Comedy Night” at McGill University and ROM After Dark: Be Yourself at the Royal Ontario Museum. A mentor and a mentee, Lena was a secondary school teacher for 7 years at Toronto District School Board before deciding to lead the life of being an entrepreneur. She is now the owner of Assiginack Consulting & Training, inspired by the legacy of her ancestor who was a War Chief and Oratory. Lena’s poetry and filmmaking has led her to receive a mentorship from Buffy Sainte Marie (2011) before opening for the icon. She ended year 2022 off by being an opening act for Rupi Kaur at Massey Hall. Her comedy received a mentorship for the Indig-E Girl web series through mentorship with Second City which is what ignited her to explore more sketch comedy writing.
World-builders, shapeshifters is supported by the Maada’ookii Committee, Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation and the Downie & Wenjack Foundation and Hudson Bay Foundation through Oshki Wuppowane: The Blanket Fund.
Join Associate Curator Erin Szikora for a guided tour of Couzyn van Heuvelen’s solo exhibition “CAMP“.
Thursday Curatorial Tours are free and open to everyone. They provide deeper insight into the themes, context, and content of our exhibitions. Seating options are available. For more information about access and our facilities, please visit rmg.on.ca/visit/ or contact Hannah Keating at [email protected] with any specific requests.
In “HEAVY/WATER/MACHINE”, artist Noah Scheinman uses a variety of materials and research methods to explore the boundaries of Durham Region, offering a panoramic view of a landscape and community shaped by industry. Swimming along the region’s southern border in the waters of Lake Ontario and travelling by car across the region’s northern highways, Scheinman meditates on the ways humans relate to the lands we live on and the local and global industries that power our everyday lives.
“RIP/RAP” is a two-channel video, which documents the artist’s swim-performance adjacent to the nuclear power plant in Pickering and stitches together archival and present-day footage of the historic radioactive waste disposal site in Port Granby. In the former, Scheinman shows the shore of Lake Ontario to be a site of permeability. With each repeated breath, Scheinman takes in views of the land, power plant, and sky before immersing his sights in the water. Each is inseparable from the other, all part of the same system. The second film considers the contrasting timescales of a single human life and the lengthier cultural epochs associated with dominant sources of energy, including the levels of consumption they permit and the generational inheritance of energy-based waste.
Scheinman’s other works draw on a variety of industrial materials, including window vinyl, broken windshield glass, and architectural remnants to fill in his visual representation of Oshawa and Durham Region. The artist also collaborated with local clothing manufacturer Frère du Nord to produce two textile sculptures using geosynthetic fabrics, which are designed to stabilize terrain in large-scale projects, such as land rehabilitation. His appropriation of these materials offers moments of poetic reflection on the physical impacts and cultural influence of large-scale energy production. Indeed, as an expression of the artist’s ongoing research, “HEAVY/WATER/MACHINE” is a rumination on the past and present systems that fuel contemporary life and an invitation into a discourse about what the future has in store.
Installation of HEAVY/WATER/MACHINE at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Related Programming
Watch the discussion panel with Katie Lawson, Ryan Osman, Dave Mowat, Laura Murray, Warren Harper, and Noah Scheinman that took place on October 14, 2023.
The RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artist Project.
Dreaming of the worlds we want to live in allows us to take the first steps towards creating them. How can we use what we know today to collectively envision a better world for tomorrow? When you imagine the future, what do you hope to change about the past?
World-builders, shapeshifters is a group exhibition that invites us to gather, dream, and speak about love, grief, and togetherness. It braids together six early and mid-career Indigenous artists making speculative work about where they’ve been to better understand where, together, we can go. Exploring themes of decolonial love, joy, kinship, and abundance, the exhibition uses Indigenous Futurism as a device to imagine and believe into being, a world where everyone’s sovereignty is respected, our success is shared, and our flourishing is mutual.
Alex Jacobs-Blum is a Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ (Cayuga) and German visual lens-based artist and curator. Her research focuses on Indigenous futures and accessing embodied Ancestral Hodinöhsö:ni’ knowledge. The core of her practice and methodology is a strong foundation in community building, fostering relationships, empowering youth, and Indigenizing institutional spaces. Her creative process is rooted in cyclical storytelling and challenging hierarchical power structures. Jacobs-Blum endeavours to facilitate transformative change infused with love and care, guided by anti-oppressive and anti-racist modalities.
Jacobs-Blum received a Bachelor of Photography at Sheridan College in 2015, where she was awarded the Canon Award of Excellence for Narrative Photography. Her work has been exhibited at the University of Ottawa, Centre[3] for Artistic + Social Practice, the Woodland Cultural Centre, and Critical Distance Centre for Curators.
Kat Brown Akootchook is a Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe visual artist and educator belonging to the Oneida Nation of the Thames, Bear Clan. She is a multidisciplinary beadworker and creator known for her printmaking and design. She blends contemporary & traditional elements with a sense of humour and a heart for activism. She often uses her art to call attention to Indigenous rights movements and youth education.
Kat currently splits her time between Southern California and her homelands of Southern Ontario. She is most known for her “Land Back” design, which she created at the Native Action for Mauna Kea, and can be seen on t-shirts across Turtle Island. Her beadwork and designs are used for authentic contemporary Native representation on television and by musicians.
One of her biggest goals is to be that auntie who helps and breaks down the gatekeeping that can sometimes prevent Native people from accessing traditions which have been forcibly taken from us – reclaiming our land, ways, and expression is an honour and a joy.
Kay Nadjiwon is a two-spirit/non-binary Anishinaabe lens-based artist working in Treaty 13. They are currently completing their BFA in Photography at Toronto Metropolitan University and are an MFA candidate. Their artistic practice focuses on issues of identity, memory, trauma and belonging. Nadjiwon uses archival materials, alternative processes and interdisciplinary methods to situate feelings of grief as a site for social connection. Their practice includes photography, video, collage and installation.
Natalie King is a queer interdisciplinary Anishinaabe (Algonquin) artist, facilitator and member of Timiskaming First Nation. King’s arts practice ranges from video, painting, sculpture and installation as well as community engagement, curation and arts administration. King is currently a Programming Coordinator at Xpace Cultural Centre in Tkaronto.
Often involving portrayals of queer femmes, King’s works are about embracing the ambiguity and multiplicities of identity within the Anishinaabe queer femme experience(s). King’s practice operates from a firmly critical, anti-colonial, non-oppressive, and future-bound perspective, reclaiming the realities of lived liv es through frameworks of desire and survivance.
King’s recent exhibitions include Come and Get Your Love at Arsenal Contemporary, Toronto (2022), Proud Joy at Nuit Blanche Toronto (2022), Bursting with Love at Harbourfront Centre (2021) PAGEANT curated by Ryan Rice at Centre[3] in Hamilton (2021), and (Re)membering and (Re)imagining: the Joyous Star Peoples of Turtle Island at Hearth Garage (2021). King has extensive mural making practice that includes a permanent mural currently on at the Art Gallery of Burlington. King holds a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University (2018). King is currently GalleryTPW’s 2023 Curatorial Research Fellow.
Nishina Shapwaykeesic-Loft is Kanien’kehá:ka from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. She is a 2S queer, multi-disciplinary artist in a wide spectrum of mediums. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from York University in Theatre Production and Design.
She works in the theatre industry with a specialization in costuming. She is a mural artist working with StART as a project coordinator and an indigenous advisor. She is the Associate Programmer for the Toronto Queer Film Festival and has worked in programming for imagineNATIVE Media + Arts Festival. She continues to grow within her field and explore new opportunities.
Sheri Osden Nault is an artist, community worker, and Assistant Professor in Studio Arts at the University of Western Ontario. Their work spans mediums including sculpture, performance, installation, and more; integrating cultural, social, and experimental creative processes. Their work considers embodied connections between human and non-human beings, land-based relationships, and kinship sensibilities as an Indigenous Futurist framework. Methodologically, they prioritize tactile ways of knowing, and learning from more than human kin. Their research is grounded in their experiences as Michif, nêhiyaw, and Two-Spirit, and engages with decolonizing methodologies, queer theory, ecological theory, and intersectional and Indigenous feminisms. They are a member of the Indigenous tattoo revival movement in so-called Canada, and run the annual community project, Gifts for Two-Spirit Youth.
Recent notable exhibitions include bringing to light what came from inside, as part of the Images Festival, Toronto; BEHOLD|EN, at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Kwaatanihtowwakiw – A Hard Birth, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2022; Hononga at Hoea! Gallery in Aotearoa (New Zealand), 2021; Where the Shoreline Meets the Water, the ArQuives, Toronto, 2020; Off-Centre at the Dunlop Art Gallery, 2019; and Li Salay at the Art Gallery of Alberta, 2018.
Installation of World-builders, shapeshifters at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
This exhibition is presented with support from the Maada’ookii Committee, Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, the Downie & Wenjack Foundation and Hudson Bay Foundation through Oshki Wuppowane: The Blanket Fund, and the Government of Ontario through the Tourism Relief Fund.
Join us in celebrating the harvest season! The night will feature music from Matthew Holtby and Darren Roy Clarke. We will also be hosting a breathwork mediation seminar will take place in Arthur’s by Julie Brar. In the lobby, Dine and Style will be presenting a small autumn bounty.
Order of Events
7 pm – Doors Open
7:10 pm – First film screening with DRIFF
7:30 pm – Opening remarks & first performance by Darren Clarke
8:15 pm – Intermission
8:30 pm – Second film screening with DRIFF
8:45 pm – Performance by Matthew Holtby
Join Farah in the Studio downstairs between sets to try out paper quilling. We will use designs inspired by the autumn season to created intricate artwork. No experience required!
In the Lookout, DRIFF will be screening a short film at 7:10pm and 8:30pm.
Engaged to be Engaged by Joseph Covello (13 mins)
On the brink of proposing, a hopeless romantic confronts her true fears and insecurities as she imagines all the ways it could backfire. Meanwhile, her boyfriend is facing a similar predicament.
Community, Breath and the Power of Cellular Nutrition
Come to this informative talk that brings together the community using the power of breath, meditation and regeneratively grown foods. Julie will be guiding you through powerful yet simple breathing exercises that will help you to calm your nervous system. She will also be sharing the power of high vibration regeneratively grown foods and how that help to lift your physical and spiritual practice. Transitioning from summer to fall is a powerful time to reflect and come together as a community. Please bring a journal, pen, yoga mat and a cushion to sit on.
Session is 90 minutes with time for Q & A. Registration is required.
Julie Brar is an award-winning Holistic Nutritionist and Regenerative Health Practitioner who is passionate about supporting others to better health. Julie also holds several yoga certifications and taught yoga for several years prior to moving into Regenerative Health.
Julie specializes in helping men and women who desire to create the best health possible through regenerative health practices. Julie has used nutrition, detoxification protocols and various holistic health practices to reverse her Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism diagnosis. She uses similar tools for clients whether they want to improve an autoimmune condition or simply release weight. She has multiple programs for individuals and groups online.
Julie is also a published author in a collaborative book project, The Courage to Change, which hit the bestseller list on Amazon under Motivation in 2019.
Warkworth’s Matthew Holtby, has been honing his craft as a songwriter and performer for nearly two decades, producing original and emotive music that strikes a chord with audiences. Recently embarking on a new adventure as a solo artist, he has channeled his influences from the music he grew up with into his latest collection, featuring songs and stories that touch on themes of love, loss, and redemption. His music has been gaining recognition, including rotation on CBC Radio. A new album is set for release later this year.
Singer, songwriter, guitarist Darren Roy Clarke writes songs that map the highways of his heart. Blending delicate roots, confessional country, and heartbreak folk, his music reveals a road-worn journey of the soul. Darren spins introspective vignettes in his distinctive tenor voice, accompanying himself with expressive, exploratory guitar that is as integral to these tails as his lyrics.
Hailing from the cozy, artsy hamlet of Warkwarth, ON, Darren has been writing and performing for over 30 years, opening for the likes of Jason Collett, Craig Cardiff, and the Good Lovelies.
Join us to learn about the life and art of artist Alexandra Luke. Guest lecturer Margaret Rodgers (artist, curator, writer) is the author of the book Locating Alexandra. Alexandra Luke (i.e. Margaret McLaughlin, 1901-1967) was an important artist linked to the beginnings of abstract painting in Canada and a founding member of Painters Eleven, Ontario’s first abstract painting group (1953-1960). Rodgers will share her knowledge and research about Alexandra Luke to compliment the current exhibition at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Alexandra Luke: Push and Pull, on view until January 14th.
Celebrate CAMP with us at Odibaadodaan: Celebrating First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Storytellers on Friday, November 24 from 6-9pm. More details here.
Born in Iqaluit, Nunavut, but living predominantly in Southern Ontario, Couzyn van Heuvelen’s artistic practice explores Inuit cultural sovereignty and the tools and technologies of living on the land. Known for his large-scale sculptural works, van Heuvelen’s playful approach seamlessly blends traditional practices with contemporary materials and fabrication processes, asserting the resiliency and adaptability of Inuit culture.
The four sculptural installations in this exhibition build from van Heuvelen’s earlier investigations into hunting and fishing practices by shifting focus to the chores and communal spaces that take shape around the harvesting and preparation of food. Drawing on the seasonal practice of setting up camp in warmer months, van Heuvelen participates in the celebration that takes place when Northern communities gather to hunt and fish together. It’s here where skills are passed from one generation to the next and the sustenance provided by the land is gathered, then shared with friends and neighbours. Van Heuvelen honours these practices in his work, reenacting the processes of fleshing seal, tanning hides, drying pitsik, and filleting char in materials new and familiar to his artistic practice.
This work is shaped by the artist’s own formative experiences with his family and his desire to connect with the love and labour of his homelands. He demonstrates how the camp is a site for shared learning, community-building, and joy. Situating viewers in this conceptual and cultural space, CAMP addresses the critical role of land-based practices in Inuit self-determination, food sovereignty in the North, and the pleasures of celebrating in community around food.
Couzyn van Heuvelen is an Inuk sculptor and multi-disciplinary installation artist. Born in Iqaluit, Nunavut, but living in Southern Ontario for most of his life, van Heuvelen’s work explores Inuit culture and identity, new and old technologies, and personal narratives. While rooted in the history and traditions of Inuit art, his work strays from established Inuit art making methods and explores a range of fabrication processes. His use of unconventional materials and fabrication processes, combined with elements of Inuit culture, mirrors his own process of exploring how traditional practices continue to influence his everyday life.
Van Heuvelen holds a BFA from York University and an MFA from NSCAD University. His work has been included in many group exhibitions across Canada, including the inaugural exhibition INUA at WAG-Qaumajuq (2020), the touring exhibition ᐊᕙᑖᓂᑦ ᑕᒪᐃᓐᓂᑦ ᓄᓇᑐᐃᓐᓇᓂᑦ Among All These Tundras (2018–19), and Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity at the Power Plant (2022). Van Heuvelen is currently represented by Fazakas Gallery in Vancouver, BC.
Installation of Couzyn van Heuvelen: CAMP at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
This exhibition is presented with support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario.
The artist gratefully acknowledges support from the Canada Council for the Arts for this exhibition.
Time can be saved, wasted, and lost, but not stopped. We can have all the time in the world yet no time at all. Time as a concept is one of the great mysteries of the world. It is defined as the continued sequence of existence and events in the past, present, and future. Generally speaking, it measures duration; in more philosophical terms it is debated as being either linear or cyclical; and in science, the modern understanding of time is based on Einstein’s theory of relativity. This exhibition explores how artists have marked the passage of time through seasons and hours, aging, captured moments, and referencing the past.
Art can be a reflection of our times—it has the power to express and capture moments through light, colour, subject, or social commentary on contemporary issues. The RMG is dedicated to collecting with intention in order to reflect the diverse voices and contemporary issues that make up the continuing story of Canadian art. Since 1967, the gallery’s Permanent Collection of over 4,700 artworks has evolved through the acquisition of new artwork and the exploration of different themes and topics through exhibitions. Featuring a variety of works from the Permanent Collection, this exhibition reflects on the inevitable passing of time and the lessons we can learn from the past.
Installation of About Time at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2023. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
