As a settler artist who collaborates with the natural environment, I am grateful for the opportunity to live and work on Treaty 1 territory; the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg, Ininew, Anishininew, Dakota Oyate, and Denesuline, and the traditional homeland of the Red River Métis Nation. I recognize and have come to appreciate the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge-sharing culture and tradition as protectors of the natural world. My water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.
BIOGRAPHY
Tracy Peters is a Canadian artist who examines the entanglement of human and more-than-human behaviours in threatened environments. Her multidisciplinary practice investigates themes of erosion, fragility, climate change, adaptation, and preservation to encourage a deeper and more intimate connection with the natural world.
Peters has received support from the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council, and the Winnipeg Arts Council, and has been invited to attend numerous artist residencies. Her work has exhibited across Canada and Europe, and in Australia, and has been written about in art publications including Border Crossings and Peripheral Review. She lives and works on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am drawn to environments that are in the midst of cataclysmic change. My long term focus has been on the places where water meets dry land. Over the past decade, I have engaged with the shifting tide on Ireland’s coast, the rising sea level in Miami, flooded shorelines of Manitoba, and peat bog wetlands in Canada and Sweden. Most often, I carry out my work and research in natural environments where unpredictable weather and ecological surprises challenge me to adapt my studio production to biological processes.
My site-specific research uses photographic materials in collaboration with natural forces to collect impressions from the passage of time, light and weather. For example, I wove giant photographs into an abandoned grain shed, embedded light-sensitive paper in a stone beach, and submerged 16mm film in cyanobacteria on a shoreline, as witness to the effects of climate on these ecosystems. This allows me to communicate with the natural world in an attempt to access its embodied knowledge. Through these haptic interventions, I respond to the wind and water in ways that parallel those of my body, such as breathing, pulse and consciousness.