The newest exhibit at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum’s (EAGM) Gallery No. 1 offers an examination of the energy sector in two different communities, and how people in those communities react to the industry.
Mapping Narratives is a series of installations that tell the story of two cross-border communities that are part of the same railway line. The transporting of crude oil from Estevan to Albany, N.Y. connects the two communities, but they have other similarities, according to Maria Michails, who is the artist for the project.
Michails lives in Albany, but has spent considerable time in Estevan the past two years, working on the project.
“From the rural, sparsely populated canola fields of southeastern Saskatchewan to the industrial zones of the poor neighborhoods of south end Albany, the air poses threats to the well-being of residents in both places,” Michails said in her artist statement.
“Working co-creatively with the artist, multi-generational participants in Estevan and Albany, lend their stories and their creativity to this exhibition.”
In the case of Estevan, Michails worked with young people through programs at the Estevan Public Library and with older people at the Souris Valley Museum.
Michails was pleased with how Mapping Narratives turned out, but she wishes she would have had a couple more months to make last-minute tweaks and work on the audio and editing. People can hear the stories being told through some of the different structures in the exhibit, including the oil derrick in the centre of the show.
“It was my first time working with audio, and I was a little slower than most people. But I got the hang of the software pretty quickly,” she said.
Michails said she wanted to work with people on her energy project, but she knew she couldn’t just take their participation for granted. Estevan Public Library children’s program co-ordinator Christine Batke was very receptive to Michails working with the kids, while Souris Valley Museum curator-director Mark Veneziano helped to set up the oral histories project at the museum that provided the audio for the installation.
“I met people who then led me to other people … and these are the serendipitous, magical things that happened in the process of making work that, as an artist, you wished you could have more often.”
Her work associated with Mapping Narratives has allowed her to make a lot of friends in the Estevan area.
Air quality and citizen science are big elements of the show. Citizen science is different because it’s not scientists working with citizens to collect data.
“It wasn’t really the data that I was interested in, I was interested in the dialogue and the engagement,” she said.
She built an affordable prototype of an air quality monitor with low-cost sensor rovers, which wasn’t going to give her refined data. It was more engaging about issues of air pollution.
She had two sets of classes at the library, and with the second set, they were actually able to map where the sensors went and what the data was like.
The exhibit will remain on display until Sept. 6.
