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Until 31 October 2024

Outside the Belkin

Sowing and Collecting Seeds from Fireweed Fields

  • Holly Schmidt

    Holly Schmidt (Canadian, b. 1976) is an artist, curator and educator engaging in embodied research, collaboration and informal pedagogy. She creates site-specific public projects that lead to experiments with materials in her studio. As the core of her work, Schmidt explores the multiplicity of human relations with the natural world. During her residency with the Belkin’s Outdoor Art Program, Schmidt has utilized spaces between campus buildings through a process of collective knowledge production. These artistic and ecological interventions foster relationships with plants in a manner that is both distinct from the formal, university landscape design as well as from standard notions of gallery space. Schmidt has been involved in exhibitions, projects and residencies at the Belkin Outdoor Art Program; the Burrard Arts Foundation, Vancouver; AKA Gallery, Saskatoon; Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver; the Santa Fe Art Institute; Burnaby Art Gallery; and Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, Vancouver.

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Until 31 October 2024

Over the past four years as the Belkin’s Artist in Residence, Holly Schmidt developed the Outdoor Art project Fireweed Fields (2021-24) that transformed the gallery’s lawn into a fireweed meadow. In response to the climate emergency, the project increased biodiversity on campus while serving as an important site for education and dialogue.

In November, this iteration of Fireweed Fields will come to a close, as the Belkin works with UBC’s Municipal Services on transitioning the site into a permanent meadow maintained by the university at large. Although Fireweed Fields has formally ended, Schmidt’s critical work and the relationships that she has helped build have fostered our long-term commitment to biodiversity on campus.

Before the Belkin transitions the meadow, we invite members of the public to visit Fireweed Fields over the month of October to collect and gather seeds from growing plants. Those who visit may find seeds from fireweed, yarrow, beggar-ticks, cinquefoils, self-heal and woolly sunflower plants, before they are washed away by the rain. It is by sharing these plants with community that we hope to continue to sow the seeds of ecological regeneration.

We are also pleased to announce the new publication Forecast, which centres on Schmidt’s series of short poetic texts that use the language of weather reporting to speculate on collective responses to environmental changes. Designed by Information Office, Forecast includes writing by the artist alongside essays and poetry by Bopha Chhay, Barbara Cole and Sheryda Warrener. We will launch Forecast early in the new year with readings and a celebration with the artist, but in the meantime, it is available for purchase at the gallery and on our website.

 

  • Holly Schmidt

    Holly Schmidt (Canadian, b. 1976) is an artist, curator and educator engaging in embodied research, collaboration and informal pedagogy. She creates site-specific public projects that lead to experiments with materials in her studio. As the core of her work, Schmidt explores the multiplicity of human relations with the natural world. During her residency with the Belkin’s Outdoor Art Program, Schmidt has utilized spaces between campus buildings through a process of collective knowledge production. These artistic and ecological interventions foster relationships with plants in a manner that is both distinct from the formal, university landscape design as well as from standard notions of gallery space. Schmidt has been involved in exhibitions, projects and residencies at the Belkin Outdoor Art Program; the Burrard Arts Foundation, Vancouver; AKA Gallery, Saskatoon; Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver; the Santa Fe Art Institute; Burnaby Art Gallery; and Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, Vancouver.

    Read More

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