Carried by rivers, held by lands

Carried by rivers, held by lands takes form here as a group exhibition that gathers a set of artist projects developed through exchanges, gatherings, and site-responsive processes that continue beyond the gallery. Moving between river and oceanic contexts, the works attend to the flows that sustain and unsettle life—ecological, cultural, and economic.

Cooking Sections’ CLIMAVORE project, introduced through the work, Bivalve Murals, signals an ongoing collaboration with the museum around adaptive food systems. Exchanges between Kultivator and Marianne Nicolson with the Musga̱maḵw Dzawada̱ʼenux̱w First Nation centre the rematriation of knowledge connected to stinging nettle and oolichan fishing. Katarina Pirak Sikku’s works trace Sámi histories of displacement along dammed rivers.

The exhibition also brings forward projects first presented through earlier phases of the initiative. Works by Althea Thauberger and Laakkuluk Williamson and Jamie Griffiths, originally shown in the Connect Gallery, return in new relation to the broader constellation of artworks gathered here, extending conversations that have unfolded across multiple years, locations, and forms of exchange.

Together, these works foreground practices grounded in reciprocity, continuity, and resistance, proposing ways of living otherwise within and against the conditions of colonial capitalism and climate crisis.

Carried by rivers, held by lands is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Embassy of Sweden.