Sonder

Exhibition dates: December 10 – 17, 2020
Artists: Amanda Jarvis, Beatrice Hammond, Sarah Hanlon, Katie Huckson

Sonder is a neologism coined by John Koenig, which refers to the “realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as [one’s] own”. In the context of this exhibition, Sonder considers the complex, interwoven liveliness of all relations, including human, nonhuman, nonbiological and nonmaterial. 

Sarah Hanlon’s video installation “Family Matter” confronts abject human wastefulness and relates the toxicity of human behaviour to familially inherited beliefs, habits, and patterns. Katie Huckson’s multimedia work “Taken, replaced” uses domestic objects, appropriated landscape images, and things taken from the forest to question colonial impositions on the landscape and her complicity in these actions. Beatrice Hammond’s documentary project “Trans Nature” highlights the experiences of transgender teens to consider the intersections between nature and queerness. Amanda Jarvis uses mixed media and social interaction to reposition human bodies as and within nature. Her “Being Nature, Nature’s Beings” portraits decentralize the anthropomorphic and recentre our connection to all around us.

Each artist uniquely explores themes of ecology, embodiment, and materiality, driven and bound by critical investigation into the relationship between human experience and the  environment. 

Sonder, features artworks by McMaster University’s Communication and New Media Masters and PhD students. The exhibition is a culmination of Professor Chris Myhr’s course titled Cultural Production and the Environment.

For more information on the program, please follow the link below:
McMaster University Communication and New Media Program.