following a narrow trail up through the bush behind the house, i arrive at a large field grown in with grass and low bushes, bordered by trees. pine and birch trees, mostly: the smell of the needles on the ground. it is my mother’s mother who tended a garden here, carrying the water. this asparagus was planted years before she ever arrived. i cut down the overgrown rhubarb and i cook jam, standing over the stove — steaming and sweating. in the underbrush there are small wild strawberries — a seemingly endless supply — though by now i understand that nothing is endless —
Interdisciplinary research in conversation with my maternal grandmother Klara Tuft, in rural Northwestern Ontario, 2016 – 2019.
Including a residency at Platform centre for photographic + digital arts in 2017, and mentorship work with Sheilah ReStack in 2018.
Supported by the New Brunswick Arts Board, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
that cobbled cloud cover. gap teeth grinning, gridded. squares or rectangles, they don’t share the same tongues –– black pool wiggle water, sentient but slow moving. a centuries long consciousness making stones out of sand. concrete mixer. backyard grater, crater. grinding soft curvatures. moving above the sky –– spruce and pine roots hanging from the engines bellows –– suns rise, sunsets –– atmosphere evaporation. blocks built of banter-canter. can’t tell you not to. never could tell you anything
b a r t h o l o m e w / / s o p h i a 