Anoxic Memory

Curated by Megan Kammerer. Anoxic Memory at The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC) from January - April 2023.

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 plant life glimmer in the sunlight.

The research for this project was generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

The VAC would also like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for additional exhibition funding.

Closing performance and choreography by sarah koekkoek.

Used greenhouse plastic, Greenworld® Black Earth, duckweed, reindeer lichen, blown glass, acrotelm, peat moss, tree roots, dogwood, sumac, India Ink, wood, sand, water, pvc plastic,  fragrance

Fermentation 1:

Black sage, honey, water, wild plums, birch polypore, cedar, pine, balsam fir, vacuum sealed ceramic fragments

Fermentation 2:

Black sage, honey, chaga, water, reindeer lichen, cedar, pine, vacuum sealed handwritten note from 2009

Fermentation 3: 

Sugar, water, environmental yeast, reindeer lichen, vacuum sealed marble, vacuum sealed origami swan

Fermentation 4: 

Fruitopia® Orange Groove, Fruitopia® Strawberry Passion Awareness,

Coca-Cola®, Barq’s® Root Beer, white wine yeast, vacuum sealed gold participation star badge

Fermentation 5:

Sumac, spruce, fir, sugar, environmental yeast, water, vacuum sealed pop bottle caps, vacuum sealed amethyst from childhood rock collection

Fermentation 6:

NESTEA® Iced Tea, Sprite®, Fruitopia® Orange Groove, Coca-Cola®, Barq’s® Root Beer, white wine yeast, vacuum sealed Northern Flicker feathers 

Fermentation 7:

Reindeer lichen, sphagnum moss, sugar, water, white wine yeast, vacuum sealed hair

Fermentation 8: 

Car Accident Wild Plum Wine (plums, sugar, water, white wine yeast)

Fermentation 9:

Sphagnum Moss, sugar, water, white wine yeast, vacuum sealed engagement ring

Land Bodies, Decomposing Mass, 08:10 min

Video in collaboration with Ingrid K. Bjørnaali

Photos by LF Documentation