In Search Of Bearings – Wall Installation & Video Loop

The “In Search of Bearings” wall installation and accompanying art video were exhibited at the City of Ottawa Corridor 45/75 Gallery over 4 months, 2022-2023.

The wall installation comprises 10 panels of geographically sequenced, outdated, and used full-sheet navigation charts of the St Lawrence Seaway. Painting motifs of stationary wrapped boats appear as if seeking refuge, and melting glaciers flow into the embellished cartography and navigational symbols of each panel.

The original narrative is thereby reinvented in an aesthetic discussion on changing water corridors and their shoreline communities, implicating uncertainties of place identity. The melting glaciers reference the simultaneity of deep and contemporary time, the last Ice Age, and again being impacted by climate warming.

From a distance, the shape of the St. Lawrence River Seaway stretches across the panels. However, each panel is also a completed artwork in itself.

Note: Canadian Hydrography Services, which is responsible for publishing the numbered charts in this art installation, officially deemed them unsafe and illegal for their original navigation purpose due to changes in markers/bearings.