“The Sunshine Eaters”

When I sat down to talk with curator Lisa Deanne Smith about her exhibition “The Sunshine Eaters” at the new Onsite Gallery at OCADU, she spoke about being drawn to artwork that is multi-sensorial. I noted that some of the works in the show were merely visual, which prompted her to describe a bodily reaction she experienced in response to those artworks. It was as though in that moment she was being pulled out of herself. Towards what, exactly, was unclear, but this lack of clarity in the process of leaving one’s self, and the risk involved in acts of boundary crossing, saturated my experience and thoughts about the exhibition.

Despite the seemingly common-sense fact that humans are constantly swallowing and assimilating food, and therefore are intertwined with their environment on every level, there persists a notion of possible independence, containment, and therefore security. It’s a fantasy propagated politically as much as biologically to make possible, among other consequences, exclusionary immigration policies, wall building and environmental damage. In the fantasy of security, the prospect of reaching out toward another can stir the same fears as the possibility of intrusion: things can travel both ways across porous membranes, with unpredictable results.

“The Sunshine Eaters” embodies porosity not only in its individual works, but also in the wide range of artists and the ages, nationalities and career levels represented. This variety puts the 12-artist exhibition closer to a curated section of an international biennial than the typical group shows at commercial galleries or museums. Seeing emerging Toronto artists Winnie Truong and Jessica Karuhanga alongside Nick Cave and prolific documentarian Alanis Obomsawin gave a sense of continuity and cohesion to their very diverse practices, materials and preoccupations. In each of their works the boundaries and tensions between the individual and their environment are the locus of interrogation.

Entering the gallery, I immediately noticed a floral scent, and the sound of melodic incantation carried forward from Karuhanga’s video at the back of the space. The perfume emanated from two white pod-like enclosures arcing outward from the wall, housing Nina Leo and Moez Surani’s Heresies, 2018, a line of custom scents. Inside each pair of arcs, a clear bottle was affixed to a white shelf with a few centimetres of pale yellow perfume eliciting the intimate experience of leaning into the bottle to smell the contents.

Leo and Surani asked professional perfumers who live in certain places of trauma to create a scent that represents that place to them. Joel Wilson, a perfumer from Texas, created an enveloping warm vanilla scent titled My Waco. Perfumer Kayo Yoneda, who grew up in Hiroshima, created My Hiroshima, a bright floral citrus scent. For many, thinking about the word “Hiroshima” might bring to mind fire, ash and death rather than the fresh, lemongrassy perfume representing it here. Cities may never forget, but they do recover; the flowers bloom again each year, as does hope in the hearts of people who’ve witnessed just how permeable life is when confronted by weapons and those who wield them. The perfumes themselves evoke an uncanny mixture of olfactory pleasure with a sense of mourning and regret.

To the right of the space, two of Brian Jungen’s potable water jugs stood in vitrines on skinny rectangular plinths. The light blue one is Triangle Repeater, 2013, a 20-litre military water canister perforated with a traditional Métis beading pattern. Manufactured by a Canadian company called Scepter, who also manufactures artillery and infantry containers, the water canister takes its shape from gasoline jugs. Jungen’s intervention turns what should be a reliable barrier into something akin to a strainer. What we see then is a physical compromise, with what should contain the substance most vital to human life no longer able to hold it or prevent its contamination. It is, perhaps, indicative of more troubling situations—for instance, the way many Indigenous communities do not have access to clean tap water, or the inability of the Canadian government to end “boil water” advisories as promised. Alternatively, the jug becomes a metaphor for organs and porous membranes, soft shells through which contaminants like E. coli, uranium and carcinogens freely seep into bodies.

The attempt to represent the interconnectedness of humans and our environment marks other works in the exhibition, too. A tree sprouts human hands and a girl grows snakes for arms in Shary Boyle’s gold-trimmed porcelain sculpture. Winnie Truong’s cast of nude ladies is drawn with the same curling pencil marks as the leaves, bugs and flowers that surround them. And Nick Cave’s Soundsuit, 2015, features a black man in a beaded body suit wearing an armature of toy globes and vintage children’s musical toys, hovering like planets in orbit around his bedazzled figure.

In a room to the side of the main gallery, botanical drawings by the late Robert Holmes faced a large TV screen playing Alanis Obomsawin’s 2014 documentary Trick or Treaty, which chronicles the fraught history of the James Bay Treaty No. 9 signed in 1905. In December 2012 Chief Theresa Spence began a six-week hunger strike to request a meeting between Stephen Harper, the Governor General and all First Nations leaders in Canada. Obomsawin documented the ensuing 16,000-kilometre Idle No More march from James Bay to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, an attempt to improve the relationship between First Nations and the Canadian government. The group’s request was not met. Stephen Harper was in Toronto that day, reported the CBC, for a special ceremony to greet two new pandas en route to the Toronto Zoo.

Like all other membrane systems, listening requires the presence of an ear to catch the sound waves travelling in its direction, a permeability that proved too risky for the prime minister on that day. With forceful social movements in the air demanding greater responsiveness and accountability from governments and individuals alike, curators, galleries and art institutions are challenged with reconsidering well-worn exhibition strategies. “The Sunshine Eaters,” with its wide representation of artists and its inclusion of a full-length documentary, proves that sensual artwork, sensitive curation and diligent discussion of social concerns can co-exist effectively in a single exhibition. ❚

“The Sunshine Eaters” was exhibited at Onsite Gallery, Toronto, from January 10 to April 15, 2018.

Anna Kovler is an artist and writer living in Toronto.