robert tombs studio

New Topographies: Barry Pottle and Leslie Reid, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (2025)

Pottle describes himself as an “Inuk urban photographer” while Reid identifies as “a settler urban dweller.” While Pottle has largely photographed the urban scene, Reid has travelled numerous times to the Canadian Arctic in recent years in order to create works in painting, photography and video. Each artist will create new works that address social justice through depictions of landscape.

Pasapkedjiwanong: Mary Anne Barkhouse and Olivia Whetung, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (2024)

Pasapkedjiwanong is a two-person exhibition by Mary Anne Barkhouse and Olivia Whetung. Housed in the building that the Royal Canadian Geographical Society occupies next to the juncture where the Rideau Falls cascade into the Ottawa River and overlooking the confluence of the Gatineau, Ottawa, and Rideau watersheds, the title (in Anishinàbemowin, means “the river that passes between the rocks”) reflects on the turbulence, as well as beauty, of the history of the region.

The works included in this exhibition consider the damage done to Indigenous homelands by industry, extraction, and colonialism. The decimation of resources such as timber, in conjunction with the colonization of waterways through canal and dam construction, has had dire consequences on the ability of Indigenous persons to sustain ourselves in a landscape that has been devastated. Moreover, the swamps and forests that nurture biodiversity have been ravaged. The works in this exhibition use imagery of native plants, non-human animals, forests, and wetlands to explore themes of grief and resilience in the wake of this devastation, and the persistence of the wild. 

Mary Anne Barkhouse is a member of the ‘Namgis First Nation of Alert Bay, BC and a citizen of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. Olivia Whetung is a member of Curve Lake First Nation and citizen of the Nishnaabeg Nation.