July/August 2019
Rachel Rozanski (Toronto)
Project Description
I am excited to spend the next month expanding on my previous work around subarctic environments in Dawson. I will be looking at different histories here embedded in the world’s oldest permafrost, and what they show as it thaws and becomes exposed. Resulting from both warming-induced permafrost thaw and placer mining, these land cavities reveal millions of years-worth of history. I am interested in how these transform over time, leaving behind land ghosts and revealing prehistoric material. I will be working in drawing, photography and video to portray land changes, showing layers of geological and biological matter mixed with topographical formations. I look forward to gathering inspiration from local history, industry, and research.
Artist Statement
Rachel Rozanski is a Canadian artist whose interdisciplinary works explore biological, geological and material transformations appearing as we enter the Anthropocene. After studying Visual Arts at Emily Carr, Capilano, and Langara Universities she pursued a research-based practice exploring human imagination as an ecological force, and cataloguing unidentifiable items born of or morphed by it. She is currently working towards an MFA at Ryerson University in Documentary Media, and has exhibited across Canada and internationally, showing works that explore scientific concepts focusing on environmental timelines. Through artist residencies in Nunavut and Iceland, she was inspired by the study of local ecology, pollutants and adaptations and extinctions.