Moving Matter: Between rock and stone is an exhibition about Tyndall limestone, a building material quarried from a 450-million-year-old body of rock. The exhibition pairs research about the material’s transformation from bedrock to building stone, with artwork contemplating quarry ecologies, construction’s role in nation-building, and various personal and cultural histories embodied in this stone.
Moving Matter features work by 13 contemporary artists, including several new commissions, ranging from photography, sculpture, drawing, beadwork, jewellery, and video with sound. Some artists contemplate how Tyndall Stone’s rise to prominence as a trademarked building material mirrored the redefinition and construction of the wider region as Western Canada. Others explore the cyclical motion of rock formation and decay, the voids left by excavation, and the interrelation of bedrock and other parts of the environment.
A series of public programs throughout the fall will bring artists and invited guests into conversation to consider how connection to bedrock shapes orientations to place; how stories endure through the materiality of stone; and how the movement of material links landscapes and cities, forever transforming the world.
The curator gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council to present this exhibition and adjunct programming. A special thanks to Gillis Quarries Ltd. for their assistance in the development of artist commissions and the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation for their support of Tyndall Stone research.
Thank you to Sketchfab for supporting this exhibition.
