A site-specific serial collaboration for 10 artists, curated by Sheila McMath, artistic director of Inter Arts Matrix
This project was conceived in response to Linda Duvall's "In the Hole" (2017), a short-term residency located in an earthen hole on Treaty 6 territory in rural Saskatchewan. We had heard of this project before seeing any documentation - it is in fact a hole in the shape of a ring, around the root system of a wild rose bush.
But to us the title "In the Hole" evoked another kind of "hole in the ground" – rectangular, six feet deep, about seven feet long and three feet wide. Our hole in the ground harked back to "Thresholds", a series of large paintings created in the 1980s by the late Canadian artist Tony Urquhart. Inspired by open graves these paintings look down into a deep rectangular hole. As presented on the wall of a gallery, the openings become thresholds and gateways into a passage.
Some of the questions that arose as we thought about "a hole in the ground:" We must come to terms with that ground – whose ground is it, really? How deep underground, how far in the air does ownership extend? And even if on paper that piece of land belongs to us – do we belong to that land? How can we become part of the land? Can we ever put down roots?
These questions will take the physical form of a hole in the ground, seven feet long, three feet wide, and four feet deep, in Sandhills Park, in the Cedar Hill neighbourhood of Kitchener.
Special thanks to Yvonne Ip of Arise Architects Co-Operative and to Cory Zurell PhD | P.Eng. of Blackwell Structural Engineers for their advice and technical expertise that helped Inter Arts Matrix get permission to proceed with A Hole in the Ground.
This project is funded by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, and the Musagetes Fund at the Waterloo Region Community Foundation.
Artists
1. Isabella Stefanescu is a painter and interdisciplinary artist, the first artist and last artist on the site of the project.
2. Angela Nnenne Onuora is a filmmaker, media artist, actor, educator and broadcaster originally from Nigeria. She was a speaker for the 2019 IAM X-Camera Experimental Learning Circle and collaborated on the creation of a post-dramatic performance called "Dear Euripides" (2020).
3. Denise St Marie is an interdisciplinary artist and a social scientist, working for the first time on a creation project with IAM. She was a speaker for the 2020 IAM X-Camera Experimental Learning Circle.
4. Lauren Prousky is a play and research-based artist, writer and curator working primarily in sculpture, installation, painting and video.
5. Kim Kitchen is an interdiscliplinary artist working in film and sound, based in North Bay, Ontario
6. Deborah Carruthers is an artist based in Quebec interested in solastagia, the distress caused by environmental change.
7. Sydney Lancaster is a writer and inter-disciplinary artist based in Esoqwtik/Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
8. Heather Majaury is a theatre artist descendant of historically unregistered Indigenous peoples and pioneer settlers, who has collaborated with Inter Arts Matrix in an inter-generational story creation project "Generation to Generation" (2015)
9. Robert Achtemichuk is a visual artist of Ukrainian ancestry, working for the first time with IAM.
10. Linda Duvall is the artist whose work inspired this project. Linda's work exists at the intersection of collaboration, performance and conversation. Her hybrid practice addresses recurring themes of connection to place, grief and loss, and the many meanings of exclusion and absence. She is the designated responder to the work of all the other artists.
Project Documentation
Ben Gorodetsky is an interdisciplinary performer, producer, and video artist based in Kitchener, Ontario. His work explores the intersection of documentary forms, improvisation, and embodiment. He will be filming A Hole in the Ground and creating a documentary video about the serial collaboration.
Emily Urquhart is a writer based in Kitchener. She participated in the Inter Arts Matrix collaborative residency, One Art, and will be following the progress of A Hole in the Ground with the aim of writing an essay for the catalogue. She is Tony Urquhart's daughter and grew up alongside his Thresholds series.
