Curated by Matthew Kyba.

There is a common tendency to omit important stories and achievements of communities living at the margins within a nation’s history. In the case of Canadian public sculptures, these objects most commonly marry historical references with artistic interpretation to manifest freely experienced, though often colonial, monuments. Think of the giant horse statues you may see around town, often with larger-than-life white male military figures that represent the celebrated “triumphs” of our country’s past. These large bronze, stone, or metal statues typically promote Eurocentric and/or Western mythologies that preserve figures of empire as well as their historical authority. They populate our public squares, parks, and communal spaces but are often fixed in time. They do not change, and they usually do not acknowledge the more problematic underbellies of the histories they are meant to preserve. 

This practice has eclipsed many marginalized communities in North America and now prevents meaningful knowledge sharing as we experience a form of public amnesia. A forgetting of BIPOC histories, experiences, and activism in Canada.

From the earth we grow invites three artists to create new site-specific public artworks for the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington’s outdoor gardens. Couzyn van Heuvelen, Anna Binta Diallo, and Sandy Williams IV take inspiration from the little-known or oft-ignored histories of Canada’s diverse communities to create three markers of these narratives in public space. Their monuments rise from the earth to propose new possibilities and develop a functional future for public art in Canada. Each responds or grows alongside the community and environment living around it.

Anna Binta Diallo pulls found imagery and archival material from local archives to map out the active role Black bodies have made in building our country. By cutting, pasting, and splicing these images together into monuments of pseudo-mythical figures, she creates new fictions that upend linear narratives privileged by colonial histories in the West. She turns to agricultural labourers, industrial workers, and often-understudied Black activists from Canadian history. Diallo hopes to re-inscribe the legacy of these figures into our public memory, sharing their stories through fabled imagery to promote the dissemination of Black history in Canada. A reference to otherwise forgotten leaders that should be widely celebrated across our nation.

The second installation includes a new living monument constructed by the American artist and art educator Sandy Williams IV. In this large-scale wax sculpture, Williams refers to historical symbols of the Klu Klux Klan via their research into many of the hate group’s local chapters across Southern Ontario. They refer to numerous instances of the group’s abuse of the cross throughout the 1900s, a time when far-right hate refigured this symbol for agendas of white supremacism. Williams encourages reflection on these issues and problematic histories threatening Black communities in Canada. They offer popular hate symbols back to the public to reclaim for new, safe, and inclusive futures. Now you can come to our grounds and place your own mark upon this new living monument. Williams invites you to melt it, carve into it, or otherwise interact with the sculpture to make new histories for this symbol as a united public community.

Local Bowmanville-Inuk artist Couzyn van Heuvelen offers a new water jet cut series of three steel fish steaks: cross-sections of an arctic char fish. The sculpture is made of untreated steel, a modern manufacturing material that departs from traditions of Inuit art-making. Over time the steel oxides, rusting in the outdoor elements, and turning a bright orange colour like a charring fish steak. They are alive and changing as the seasons shift around them. The works also recall country foods to discuss personal themes of family and memory alongside significant issues of food security and food sovereignty among Inuit communities in the Canadian North.  

Motivated by growing concerns that public education does little to address these themes within history books and class curriculum, the VAC invited over 70 regional public schools to bring classes to the gallery’s outdoor gardens. Each could activate its public art installations to examine significant but under-discussed issues within Canadian history. Selected writers Joséphine Dennis, Yaniya Lee, and Kristy Triner present new critical responses in tandem to each monument. Their writings contextualize the works as they delve deeper into Canadian history while elucidating each artists’ studio practice.

Text by Megan Kammerer and Matthew Kyba

School resources

Virtual Tour

Join Assistant Curator Megan Kammerer for a virtual tour of from the earth we grow. This virtual tour encompasses the influences and histories behind the site-specific installations in this sculpture garden located on the VAC grounds.