Chrissy Poitras and Kyle Topping (of Spark Box Studio) collaborate with Jennie Suddick to create two immersive spaces that respond to the theme of migration. Here, their respective material practices come to life, allowing visitors to enter and interact with the artwork, that merge printmaking, sculpture and drawing. Community collaboration and interactivity are central to the work of these 3 artists, as well as celebrating both traditional and experimental material practices.

On the ground floor, guests can explore the darkened spaces with blacklight flashlights to discover the migratory systems found below the earth surface. Under the glow of the UV light, visitors are also encouraged share their own perspectives of migration by adding their own UV ink drawings to the space, for future guests to traverse.

Upstairs, visitors find themselves plunged into an energetic tangle of birds, feathers and clouds, suddenly high above the subterranean world they delved into downstairs. Guests are free to roam through the space and between the floating paper elements, which include migratory bird species from this region of Ontario. As they engage with the work, they will be illustrating their own migration through the space, reveling in frenetic state of both instability and exciting potentials.

Created for Critical Mass Art: Port Hope