shnu’a’th, ᐊᑳᒥᕽ akâmihk, the other side is an exhibition of new photo-based artworks by Michelle Sound and Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun. The title of this exhibition, set in Hul’qumi’num, Cree, and English, suggests both geographical proximity (the other side of the river) and spiritual proximity (the afterlife). Works in the exhibition consider relations with land, family, and ancestors through interventions in the medium of photography.

In our daily scroll through digital images, it is easy to forget that pictures can be tangible objects with weight and texture. When we encounter printed snapshots, we can hold them and ask: Who is this person? Where are they standing? How are we related? Who took this photo? then flip them to look for handwritten notes on the other side. Photographs of all types can spark stories, but photographs as objects can carry unique traces of the people or places they represent.

Sound and White-Hill begin with this understanding, and employ sculpture and installation to bring new life to photographic images. Through cyanotypes printed on elk hide drums, torn prints that have been repaired and adorned, drawings of spirits layered on top of archival images, and spindle whorl patterns cut out from historical landscape photographs, the artists work to enact care for their families, and communities, here and on the other side.

shnu’a’th, ᐊᑳᒥᕽ akâmihk, the other side is the third exhibition through which Nanaimo Art Gallery asks the question: How can we work together?

Image:

Eliot White-Hill, Kwulasultun, Squpastul (Gathering), Detail of digitally altered historical photograph, 2024