Who Chose The Sea

Another installation near where I left off yesterday in the Ottawa Art Gallery had a deeply unsettling effect. To put it into context requires the display panels. For Those Who Chose The Sea is a multimedia work masterminded by Stanley Wany, combining video footage of the Atlantic with a mixed media illustration and a wooden structure. The structure is a reproduction of a section of a slave ship, giving the visitor a sense of how cramped they really were.

As the sign notes before you go in, you can actually move within the cramped quarters of the structure and see for yourself just how confining it is.

The video screen is at the head of the room and gives a sense of what it might have been like on an ocean voyage. How many, knowing they were heading into slavery, might have, given the chance, jumped overboard?

The last shot, seen within, was taken while I was kneeling, the upper decking above me, reinforcing how confining these ships would have been. Three feet of height from lower deck to upper deck. That's it.

Gallery

With summer upon us it was time to switch out my header. The new one was taken last summer at Richmond Landing on the Ottawa River, upstream from Parliament Hill. 

The Ottawa Art Gallery lies at the edge of Sandy Hill. This city gallery hosts a rotating series of exhibits. Several years ago a new home for the place was built. It was moved out of its quarters within Arts Court- to which it is still connected- and into a new building as part of an expansion partnership that also saw the building of a hotel and University of Ottawa space for their theatre program. Approaching from the west, I took these shots. The two 19th century buildings are a former courthouse and a former jail. Today the courthouse is home to Arts Court, a multi-organization artistic centre, and the former jail, the Carleton County Gaol, is a hostel. Beyond, the white cube structure is the Ottawa Art Gallery. I came for a visit a few days ago.

Approaching one of the main entrances gives us this view.

Inside, an oversized version of Algoma Landscape by Franz Johnston of the Group of Seven. The city has a good collection of the Group's work.

Across from it, a work in progress, with the soft hum of a machine in motion drawing the ear. The Life Of A Building is a work by Greta Grip and Lee Jones, a knitting machine that is steadfastly creating a textile fabric over the course of the year, based on the presence and interaction of visitors.

Upstairs I went to one of the gallery spaces. Here was an unusual work, a commentary in three dimensions by Yinka Shonibare. Mr. And Mrs. Andrews Without Their Heads is a 1998 work that reinterprets a painting by Thomas Gainsbourough that resides in the National Gallery in London.

Here's the original.

And here's the reinterpretation, done in full size- just without the heads. Odd, but it works.

Finale

All good things come to an end, and so it is with my coverage of the Tulip Festival. At the south end of Commissioners Park, these beds were showing off to the visitors. I hope you've enjoyed this series throughout. It's been a pleasure presenting it to you.

Bloom

More of those beautiful tulips today in Commissioners Park.

The beds lying west of the main path lasted this year; this view includes the lake and the Arboretum beyond it.

But it's the main beds that draw the visitor in.

One last shot for today. Tomorrow we bring this series to a conclusion.

Purple

A reminder to members of City Daily Photo that the theme for July is Transparent. 

I find this purple enchanting.

More beckoned me on.