Abstract

Keywords:
Curating, online exhibitions, net art, sound art, video art, platforms, digital, web, internet, archives, meander

This paper will address the emergent realm of online exhibitions through the specificities of my doctoral research-creation thesis exhibition improvement becomes a wall, and the river meanders still, 2022. The online sound and video-based exhibition speaks to relations with water as they emerge and shift through urban development. Taking up a critical (re)reading of colonial notions of ‘improvement,’ my artist collaborators Danica Evering, Elijah Harper, and Shelby Lisk revisit the connection between Wonscotonach (the Don River) and the city of Tkarón:to. The exhibition’s form and curatorial process are both expressions of ‘the meander’, inspired by the non-linear trajectory of the pre-canalized Don River. The curatorial process of improvement becomes a wall, and the river meanders still began before the global COVID-19 pandemic and, subsequently, was derailed in March 2020. The exhibition’s final form was unknowable throughout much of the curatorial process. Thus, following the meander as a curatorial technique, the process, online exhibitionary structure, and content had to adapt through lingering uncertainty.

• Treva Legassie, OCAD University, Toronto, Canada