Abbotsford, BC – On January 28, The Reach will open the first solo exhibition by Stó:lō artist Deb Silver, a recent MFA graduate from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and a finalist for the 2021 Lind Prize for Emerging Artists.
Feet Deep in Wet Earth and Watery Pools is an exhibition of new photographic work by Silver, in which the artist seeks to combine and harmonize both Coast Salish cultural teachings and scientific enquiry as they relate to plant knowledge, ecology, and analogue photography. For this project, Silver specifically sought to link plants, root systems, waterways, and lichen together in a single photo series documenting intimate landscapes in Pelhó’lhxw territory (eastern Chilliwack).
Using a Mamiya RB67 medium format film camera, Silver captures in great detail the cracks, bumps, and indents that comprise the unique beauty of each plant represented. Silver is committed to establishing and maintaining respectful relationships with her plant subjects, always introducing and explaining herself as she approaches with the intention to photograph. For her, this part of the process is the equivalent to approaching a stranger on the street and asking to take their photograph – permission must be requested and given.
For the developing process, Silver draws on traditional Stó:lō practices of using lichen as a base for coloured dyes, and combines this with knowledge gleaned from horticultural research and a scientific method of trial and error to create intimate, evocative images of forests and undergrowth in S’ólh Téméxw (the Fraser Valley).
The exhibition at The Reach also includes a reconfigured version of Silver’s photographic installation project Their Words Echo Through My Core (2018), produced for her BFA program at the University of the Fraser Valley. This will be the first time the two projects have been displayed together, with the earlier project providing insight into Silver’s ongoing interest and exploration into the relationship between photography and land and plant knowledge.
“The Reach is the only public, professional art gallery in the Fraser Valley, and as such we have an important responsibility to support the artistic and professional development of artists who live and work in our region,” says Curator of Art & Visual Culture, Adrienne Fast. “Even more importantly, we are located on the unceded, traditional, and occupied Stó:lō territory of the Semá:th and Máthekwi First Nations. We work very hard to be gracious guests, and to build and maintain respectful and supportive relationships with our Indigenous hosts. This exhibition is a perfect opportunity for us to combine those dual responsibilities by highlighting and celebrating the work of Deb Silver and sharing it with a wider audience.”
Certain individual works in this exhibition have been previously exhibited, at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, as well as in the 2021 Lind Prize exhibition at the Polygon Gallery. However, this current exhibition represents the first opportunity for a breadth of Silver’s recent practice to be displayed together in the artist’s home territory.
Image: Deb Silver, Mushroom, from the series Feet Deep in Wet Earth and Watery Pools, 2021, silver
gelatin prints dyed with usnea lichen.