Unhistoric Acts, 2021.

Presented as part of the 2021 Bonavista Biennale (Curated by Matthew Hills and Patricia Grattan, with assistance from Jane Walker, Bethany Mackenzie, and Keiandra Chaulk)

Unhistoric Acts was a site-specific installation on two fish flakes near the Mockbeggar Plantation in Bonavista, NL. The project honoured the labour of women in the inshore fishery while pointing out their erasure from the history of the fishery.

One flake was covered with black, embroidered fabic--the embroidery is of all the names of women and girls from the 1935 Census on the Bonavista Peninsula. The name Mary was embroidered in red to acknowledge the way Indigenous women were assimilated into settler culture, often renamed Mary - another kind of erasure. The black fabric caused the flake to "disappear" from the landscape at a distance, becoming a negative space version of itself.

The second flake was covered in sheer, blue fabric to mimic the sky so that it became absorbed into the sky, according to prevailing weather conditions.

Funded by ArtsL and the Bonavista Biennale.