Anoxic Memory is a sensory exhibition transforming the VAC’s galleries into an active peat mire. Simmons will create living installations that explore the natural biology and mythos of Canadian peatlands. From the dangerous to the health-restoring, the real to the imagined, the extractable to the preserved—our past and present are entangled in the mire.

Researcher and poet Abbi Flint once described peatlands as places of contestation and contradiction. From the dangerous to the health-restoring, the real to the imagined, the extractable to the preserved—our past and present are entangled in the mire. Canada houses 25% of the world’s peatlands, storing its highest density of these carbon-rich landscapes across Northern Ontario. Simmons works to unravel these ideas by transforming the VAC into an active peat mire, reimagining the bog’s primary three strata, one per floor of the gallery: Anoxic, Oxic, and Atmospheric. 

Visitors are invited to traverse the bog, discovering the natural biology and fantastical mythos found among its layers. Fermentation becomes a powerful force in this context—a preservation agent that parallels the anaerobic underbellies of Canadian peatlands. What is fermented and changed then has the potential to remain. Found artifacts are pressurized and preserved in the anoxic strata—fermenting, off-gassing, feeding, and becoming new. They are in relationship and in flux. Sounds erupt from the oxic layer, an otherworldly call pulling viewers to the atmospheric surface where sculptural ponds of brine and plantlife glimmer in the sunlight.