By Natasha Ponda
Taking in the natural wonders at The Beaty Biodiversity Museum, you can’t help but contemplate the thin line between science and, something a little more sacred. While you may be visiting to marvel at the largest blue whale skeleton in Canada, or learn about natural history and wildlife in a post-natural state, the current featured exhibition actually provides a contemplative inverse of that.
Sarah Ronald’s show, Disrupting Wild Echoes, uses art to explore what it could feel like for an animal to encounter humans in the backyards that we share.
When walking through the show, the initial works you encounter illustrate an objectively scientific approach to Ronald’s subjects. The images are momentary non-narratives of animals captured in the wild, a wolf sniffing the ground, a fox carrying off a recent kill, with titles such as “Territory (I), (II), (III)” and so on. A single, generalized word followed by a numeric sub-system conveys a distant yet focused concern for the creatures she depicts.
As you continue through, the drawings naturally develop into chapters. Each one informs the next, revealing Ronald’s deepening relationship with her subjects.
The use of nighttime cameras becomes an extension of her hand-drawn visualizations. Described by the artist as “blurred forms… unnatural lighting, heightened contrast, muffled darkness, and seemingly foreign landscapes speak of an existence that is exposed… vulnerable and highly sensory. I believe that this kind of enveloped sensory experience is precisely what we need in order to realign with the natural world. It is an opportunity to humbly step out of one’s clinging to personal identity, and to resonate with something vastly important and primal”.
Venturing further, you’ll notice emotional observations in Ronald’s subjects: fear in the eyes of an unsuspecting fox, or the innocently goofy surprise of an intrigued raccoon. These moments highlight a shared sense experience common to all living beings: instinctual reaction and emotion. Mirroring human experiences like fear and curiosity, we start to relate to these four-legged foragers much more.
Following these emotionally charged depictions, Ronald’s titles take a more in-depth interpretation of what she is witnessing and what she wants to say with her work. Naming the characters in her nighttime portraits as “Landspeakers,” is a reference to a practice that, as Ronald puts it, “…acknowledges intuition and hints at the world beyond human logic.” Throughout Disrupting Wild Echoes, viewers are encouraged to practice landspeaking – “a calling to harmonize with life beyond the human world”.
What comes out of Ronald’s animal encounters are depictions of the deep sensory ties to the Earth, and non-human life. Helping viewers become more in tune with the natural networks we “disrupt”.
Take advantage of human articulation and tap into animal experience until September 25, 2022 at UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
More info here: beatymuseum.ubc.ca
Discover more of Sarah Ronald’s work at: sarahronald.com
You can take the 99 B-Line bus straight to UBC, it’s about a 10-minute walk from there!
This exhibit is a continuation of the journey of reclamation and rebuilding bonds of cultural knowledge. An original reboot of the Tāpis exhibit, it adds three new makers now holding the knowledge of tāpis/tuppies (dog blankets).
When Adele ᒪᐢᑿᓱᐤᐃᐢᑵᐤ asked to be taught this knowledge from her mentor, it was with the intent of restoring important cultural knowledge taken from so many Northern Nations. For this cohort, Adele ᒪᐢᑿᓱᐤᐃᐢᑵᐤ chose makers who exhibited personal and cultural ethics close to her own, along with levels of skill necessary to undertake such a large project. “Each of these blankets takes a minimum of 200 hours (or more) to be brought to completion. It is with great pride to be able to showcase this exhibit. It has been created to show the beauty and celebration of dog regalia as completed by Michif, Dene, and other Nations to celebrate our valued dog kin.”
Originating from the Métis, Northern Cree, and Dene communities, ‘li tāpis’ (small carpet), named by the French Michif and known as ‘tuppies’ by the English and Scottish Michif, are dog blanket regalia created to celebrate dogs. Tāpis are made from wool and embellished with intricate beadwork, silk embroidery, moose or caribou hair tufting, fringed with ribbon or yarn and adorned with bells. Showing respect for sled dogs, tāpis were draped over the backs of dogs.