Review
ELEMENTAL INSPIRATION 2003: OUT OF THE WILDFIRE
Runs until October 11
Whyte Museum (Banff)
Forest fires are a necessary evil, argue scientists and government officials. From their charred remains springs up new life – and sometimes, so too does art.
Elemental Inspiration 2003: Out of the Wildfire is a group exhibition at the Whyte Museum in Banff that was borne out of destruction, but leads to beauty.
In the spring of 2003, Parks Canada announced that it planned a number of what it euphemistically refers to as "prescribed burns." The fires lit in Banff National Park and surrounding area that summer were supposed to control infestations of mountain pine beetles and improve the overall habitat for wildlife.
Instead of a controlled fire that was to be limited to a relatively small area, what they got was a raging wildfire. Flames licked over the Fairholme benchlands located between Banff and Canmore, and that initial prescribed burn grew to more than double its intended size due to tinder-dry conditions exacerbated by an ongoing lack of moisture in the area.
It was in this context that a group of 23 artists, many of whom live and work in the Bow Valley Corridor, proposed a project to the Whyte Museum to capture the many dimensions of a forest fire gone wild.
For an overview of the fire, start out with a series of six photographs by Alex Taylor titled Fire at Night. A firefighter and fire technician with Parks Canada, Taylor uses his unique perspective to capture in anguishing detail the awesome force that is a forest fire.
"It is through my photographs that I interpet the beauty and power of fire as well as the aftermath," writes Taylor in the notes located beside his work.
In another Taylor photo, a Bell 212 helicopter is shown hovering over Marble Canyon Warden Garage as the latter is engulfed in flames. All that anyone could do at that point was stay back and watch the mesmerizing scene.
Another artist who captures the sheer brutal force of a wildfire is Barbara Ziegler, a professor of art who heads up the Printmedia Research Centre at the University of British Columbia. In her print, Under Siege, a large trout can be seen desperately swimming away from burning logs that have fallen into the stream where it lives. Using vivid colours and impeccable technique, the giclée print offers a potent view of the widespread effects that wildfire has on creatures great and small.
Critically acclaimed artist Peter Von Tiesenhausen provides a post-mortem perspective of wildfire with his installation Fire Wall. Created from 100 charred and carved bee-box lids, the work takes over one entire wall of the gallery.
Von Tiesenhausen is no stranger to fire and has incorporated its remnants into much of his past work including, most famously, The Watchers, a series of five human-like figures that he created from local spruce found on his land, lit on fire and eventually installed atop the Louise Block in downtown Calgary in 1997. Even when fire has been snuffed out, Von Tiesenhausen reminds us, its presence lingers.
Although some of the pieces collected for Out of the Wildfire have been previously exhibited (such as Von Tiesnehausens’ bee-box lids) and were not created in direct response to the 2003 Banff fires, each object will help viewers better understand the danger, beauty and transformative nature of fire.
Calgary-based textile artist Anna Hergert’s Rejuvenation perhaps illustrates better than most the multiple personalities of fire. Created with a series of eight folds, it indicates the incremental steps of a wildfire, proceeding from charred ruins to glorious rebirth. |
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