Silent Witnesses

*Significant Forms*

KELOWNA ART GALLERY, MARCH 2 to June 9, 2024

During a prolific period between the early summer of 2017 and autumn of 2020, I generated hundreds of large-format film photographs of land affected by wildfire, on the unceded territories of the syilx, Secwépemc, Ktunaxa, Sinixt, Nlaka'pamux, Káínai, Siksiká and Stoney-Nakoda, Blackfoot Confederacy and Tsuut'ina among other nations. Following this output, my optimism had waned, and I was unable to move forward and create images that avoided my past successes or proposed new trajectories. Then, in December 2022, I headed out into the forest of Myra-Bellevue Park, which had burned so thoroughly shortly after its inauguration in 2002, and I began making portraits of individual trees under cover of darkness.

Whereas my past photographs spoke to a collective forest, I was now able to highlight the individual through the use of artificial lighting. Attempting to maintain a sense of optimism, yet leaning into darker photographic images, now both literally and symbolically, I continued to utilize artificial lighting and embraced a deeper sense of despair for the landscapes that I depicted, but soon I began attempting to capture a similar set of emotions in pictures made in daylight, or through a mixture of ambient and artificial lighting.

Silent Witnesses is comprised of three parts. Part I was developed around a site that burned over twenty years ago. Part II focuses specifically on fires from 2020-2022 in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys. Part III deals exclusively with the site of the 2023 McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna and along the western shore of Okanagan Lake. These three parts investigate different time scales as well as the human scale of fire, as a phenomenon that takes place at a distance, compared to fires that erupted directly within the artist’s home community.

*PART I*

the area impacted by the Okanagan Mountain Park fire of 2003

*PART II*

EXHIBITION Éveil AT THE MUSÉE RÉGIONAL DE RIMOUSKI, OCTOBER 6, 2023 TO FEBRUARY 4, 2024. POEM BY ANNIE LANDREVILLE (LEFT)

*PART III*

THE CITY OF KELOWNA AT TWILIGHT, FROM MCDOUGALL RIM, OCTOBER, 2023

The Scars in Our Community is a 15-minute audio recording featuring the voices of artist Andreas Rutkauskas and West Kelowna Fire Rescue Chief Jason Brolund. Nearly eight months after the McDougall Creek wildfire tore through parts of the City of West Kelowna and other communities along the western shore of Okanagan Lake, Chief Brolund and Rutkauskas took a walk on the outskirts of Rose Valley Regional Park, one of the areas directly impacted by the firestorm. Their discussion focuses on the critical infrastructure that was protected in this area, the trauma still being experienced in these communities, what can be done in order to live more cooperatively with wildfire and the role of photography in representing wildfire and its aftermath.

The production of this piece was organized by the Kelowna Art Gallery to accompany a series of 10 large-format colour photographs installed in the group exhibition titled Significant Forms. All of the photographs were made during the three months immediately following the lifting of area restrictions, which permitted the artist to enter into the burn site.

This particular version has been adapted to include a slideshow of images from the McDougall Creek wildfire, interspersed with images made in areas that burned in previous fires. This selection of images punctuates the conversational dialogue with visual themes of destruction and regeneration.

This project has been supported by the Kelowna Art Gallery. The artist would like to thank Curator, Christine May, the staff, board and Director at the KAG, West Kelowna Fire Rescue Chief Jason Brolund and sound engineer Evan Berg for their collaboration.

Photo credit: Joshua Desnoyers