Processes of Remediation at Campbell River Art Gallery
Coal Futures features four sculptures of witch's hands inspired by the Wicked Witch of the West and Martine de Bertereau, the first recorded European female mining engineer and mineralogist. These works are cast from the artist's hands with long black nails balancing untraditional dowsing rods. One of the hands rests on a core from coal drilling exploration at Grassy Mountain in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. Two others rest on chunks of coal and all of the works are sprinkled with coking coal from the tar sands.
The artwork was originally created for the exhibition Processes of Remediation and explores the precarious balance between the past, present, and future of coal mining and resource extraction. The dowsing rods connect to the artists's familial history of water witching and the historical practice in Europe, where dowsing was used to locate underground resources such as water, mineral ores, and coal.
Coal Futures alludes to stock market futures, financial contracts obligating the buyer to purchase (or the seller to sell), an asset at a predetermined future date and price. These contracts, often used to speculate or hedge against price changes, parallel the speculative nature of resource extraction.