Waves/River - Vagues/Rivières

The exhibition presents five framed darkroom prints of the Red River on Treaty 1 Territory. The cyanotype on canvas was made using sunlight. The Red River begins in Wahpeton North Dakota and runs northward. The water enters Canada through the Emerson-Pembina Border Crossing. It travels through Treaty 1 territory and empties into lake Winnipeg. The river has dual citizenship. I always experience the same melancholy in the presence of dormant water, a very special melancholy whose color is that of a stagnant pond in a rain-soaked forest, a melancholy not oppressive but dreamy, slow, and calm. - Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams, An Essay on the Imagination of Water What's in a river? What's a symbol for the ocean? What waters separate areas? What happens under water? As they neared the shore each bar rose, heaped itself, broke and swept a thin veil of white water across the sand. The wave paused, and then drew out again, sighing like a sleeper whose breath comes and goes unconsciously. Gradually the dark bar on the horizon became clear as if the sediment in an old wine-bottle had sunk and left the glass green. - Virginia Woolf, The Waves The photographic images are made with the use of water. The darkroom process involves a series of chemical bathes and a washing cycle. The Cyanotype process demands a water based chemical dye and a wash. Images that are made from water about waters and rivers. The cyanotype process is a process used to make blueprints in the late 1800’s. Anna Atkins pioneered the photographic use by documenting english plants. While the indigo blue creates an image the color itself evokes emotion and imagery of cold waters and rivers.