Two artists track traces of metaphysical mysteries
Art | Gregory Beatty | June 9, 2022
Messages from the Rocks: Stories of the Invisible
Art Gallery of Regina
Until July 31
This exhibition by Linda Duvall and Jillian McDonald is one where you can truly say “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”— two of which, in this case, are actual holes that the artists dug into the ground.
They started their projects separately (Duvall on her prairie property south of Pike Lake, McDonald in the tiny backyard of her home in Brooklyn), then later connected online.
“It was a collaborative project, where we each dug these holes and helped each other by filming them,” said McDonald in a late May interview with Duvall at Art Gallery of Regina.
“Mine was full of landfill — broken bottles, bricks, chunks of concrete and other construction material,” she recalls. “It was very hard to dig, whereas the sand Linda was digging in was very smooth. We ended up with a two-projection video where we’re each digging, then at the end something unexplained happens.”
Fairy Stones
The two-channel video forms the cornerstone of Messages from the Rocks. But from there, the collaboration grew, says Duvall.
“We started to think about the unknown, both human and non-human,” she says.
“I can give you an example,” Duvall continues. “It was a story my grandmother told every Sunday, and it was when her son was killed in a car accident 100 miles away. She knew the moment he died and felt it in her body. Everyone has a story like that. They’re elusive. They’re not verifiable. But they’re something we have as humans.”
“People who have these stories, they maybe don’t have a scientific explanation, but they have some kind of explanation,” says McDonald. “Maybe it’s a personal connection, or a cultural explanation based on a worldview or creation myth. But the explanations are interesting, and we appreciate the variety of them, and the mysteriousness too.”
McDonald has ancestral roots in Scotland, and while visiting there a few years ago she heard a story about these Stonehenge-like formations that were on the land.
“The Scottish explanation is that fairies tossed them there, so they’re called ‘fairy stones’,” she says. “When I heard about them, I imagined tiny stones on a path. But they’re huge. It’s a mysterious and imaginative way of thinking about the landscape, as opposed to the large boulders found in southern Saskatchewan [called erratics] which we know from science migrated down from the north through glaciers.”
While Messages from the Rocks has a bit of a New-Age feel, it’s not a repudiation of science and the broader empirical realm.
“We’re not actually after answers in the way that science is, we’re just asking questions and wanting to open up the conversation,” says Duvall. “There may be possibilities to investigate, but we’re really just interested in the conversation.”
As it happened, some of the conversations the artists had while prepping for the show were with scientists — including a biologist, archaeologist and geologist. They also held Zoom meetings with an Indigenous knowledge keeper, building managers (to learn about Regina’s notorious “gumbo” soil) and more.
They also visited Regina for a research residency last August where, in McDonald’s words, they did a lot of “thinking and exploring”.
One contact they made was Ryan McKellar from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.
“The city has these trail cameras all around, and they’re looking at wildlife in Regina,” says Duvall. “He collects all the images, and he gave us the rejects that didn’t have any scientific information. But they’re amazing.”
“They’re very ambiguous, so you’re not sure what you’re looking at,” says McDonald. “There’s a blur, so maybe it was an animal, or the wind, or a sun flare, as the cameras are activated by motion and heat.”
The artists have been in Regina since the May long weekend. Through various means, such as participating in the Cathedral Village Arts Festival and hosting visitors in the gallery, they’ve been inviting people of all ages and backgrounds to share stories they might have about weird or mysterious things they’ve experienced.
“We have these posters with ambiguous images and text on them such as ‘Have You Been Carried by the Wind?’ or ‘Do the Trees Call for You?’” says McDonald. “These evocative statements that will hopefully open up the conversation we have with people.”
They also organized several nature walks lead by some of the people they’d connected with earlier. McKellar, for instance, lead an Invisible Animals tour one Sunday afternoon to show people traces of different animals that he’s seen on the trail cams.
“There are hints of what is unseen,” says Duvall. “They could be tracks, or droppings, scratches on a tree, or a hole in the ground. Ryan was able to recognize these elusive indicators of what animals had passed through. It reflects his ability to see things in a different way.”
A second “walk” was held with Indigenous Knowledge Keeper Lorne Kequahtooway. But it took a different form, says Duvall. “We were talking about going for a walk, and Lorne said, ‘You know, I think we should just sit and listen’. He talked about feeling the land.
“There’s all kinds of engagement we were excited to explore,” she says.
Throughout their stay in Regina, the artists have been adding stories they’ve collected to the gallery exhibit. They’re in Regina until June 11, but even after that people can still contribute, as there will be writing and drawing material in the gallery.
Assuming funding can be found, Duvall and McDonald plan to condense the material collected during the show and publish a field guide for people to maybe visit sites where different stories are set.
While the exhibition might seem fun and whimsical, there is an edginess to it, says Duvall.
“People sometimes say ‘I have a great story, but don’t put my name on it’,” she says. “That’s interesting, because we’re edging into something taboo. It has to do with what is verifiable, and what is acceptable. In some ways, the traditional scientific investigation is more acceptable than this conversation we’re putting out.”
That may be. But with scientists continuing to discover all sorts of weird and wonderful things about the world we live in that once would’ve been dismissed as crazy — such as that trees and fungi can communicate over great distances and share resources — it’s a conversation that’s worth having.