The Loft Gallery Commission
The Hissing Folly by Cole Swanson
February 2, 2020 - February 7, 2021
The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington
The Loft Gallery Commission Program invites contemporary artists to create site-specific installations in the unique attic gallery space at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC). Operating out of a 115-year-old barley mill, many features of the building hint at its long history, specifically in the Loft Gallery, its most untouched room. The gallery is supported by wooden pillars, enclosed with vaulted ceilings, and lined with concrete walls; close inspection reveals names and dates carved in various crevices and corners. Artists are invited to reenvision and transform the space through producing new and ambitious works that ask questions and open our minds to possibilities we had not imagined before. The works often become part of the community’s locale, engaging VAC visitors with topics related to our community, region, and times.
The 2020 iteration of the VAC Loft Gallery Commission features an installation by Canadian artist, Cole Swanson. Swanson’s ongoing body of work examines biosystems in direct negotiation with human life at a time of unprecedented social, political, and environmental change. The Hissing Folly looks at Durham Region’s ecological landscape and poses critical questions around human relationships with invasive species, specifically phragmites (European common reed). Phragmites is a perennial grass that spreads quickly and out-competes native species for water and nutrients. This plant has been damaging ecosystems in Ontario for decades including areas of Clarington and the wider Durham Region.
Working with the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority (CLOCA), this collaborative project includes the collection and removal of phragmites from the Thickson’s Woods Land Trust of Durham Region. In an effort to contribute to the control of phragmites in this ecologically sensitive area, the harvest will become part of a multidisciplinary installation in the VAC’s Loft Gallery. Using the centuries-long tradition of thatching, Swanson employs a low-cost and ecological method of using local vegetation to build roofs as the main method to build his structure. The resulting construct is a folly; designed primarily for decoration, while suggesting a greater purpose through its appearance.
The Hissing Folly considers phragmites as a historically valuable construction material with creative potential compared to its adverse effects on biodiversity in Canada. The project embodies the colonial, consumer, and cultural systems responsible for the passage of phragmites from Europe to North America, reflecting on the dissonance between the generative and destructive capacities of organisms mediated by human values and activities.
