Earthwork

Earthwork critically reassesses the art historical framings of “earthwork” popularized by the Minimalist and Land Art movements of the 1960s and 1970s, reclaiming the term through an Indigenous lens. The exhibition re-imagines what it means to work with and for Earth, building on ancestral and contemporary practices of repair and resilience toward possible futures.

Like the term “beadwork,” earthwork refers to a way of working rather than the making of singular objects. With a Canada-wide scope emphasizing the Great Lakes region, Earthwork takes as its starting point an understanding of ancestral earthworks less as monuments than as sites of ongoing stewardship and care. It considers multiple layers of engagement with the land, including a history of land defense movements, the cultivation of plants, and ancestral practices of prescribed burns alongside contemporary artworks as creative acts of relational intervention.