all roses sleep (inviolate light)
all roses sleep (inviolate light) is an olfactory video by Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski that blends how bees and humans experience and use the land around us. Shot using ultraviolet video, visitors are invited to see the prairie landscape from a bee’s point of view and smell a scratch and sniff card that expands on the pleasant and pungent experience of pumpjacks, grazing cattle, prairie grasses, and wildflowers. As the solitary bee searches and dreams of a rose, the work is meant to conjure questions about our shared future.
Organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta and curated by Lindsey Sharman. Thank you to Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Alberta University of the Arts for funding to support the creation of this work.
Watch the trailer here or by clicking the first image below. Read the publication here. Please email me for link to view full video hello@alanabartol.com.
Photos 10-13: Installation view of Alana Bartol & Bryce Krynski, all roses sleep (inviolate light), Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, 2022. Photography by Charles Cousins, courtesy of the Art Gallery of Alberta. All other documentation by the artists.
all roses sleep (inviolate light) follows a solitary bee as it flies through prairie landscapes in search of a wild rose. Drawing attention to how we experience the world through our senses, this video blends how bees and humans interact with and know our environments. Shot using ultraviolet, this video explores parts of a bee's visual range, enabling us to see the prairies from a bee’s point of view. A scratch and sniff card allows us to further step into the shoes, or rather the nose, of a bee. With this new perspective, the landscape becomes alien and while some familiar details are lost, new patterns come into focus and familiar flowers become strange and delicious.
The video has a dreamlike quality that raises questions about our consciousness. Are we experiencing the world as a bee? Are we a bee that is dreaming? Are we human and having a dream that we are a bee? Are we a bee that is dying and remembering the best moments of our life? Dizzying views are punctuated by the pleasant and pungent smells of southern Alberta. Pumpjacks, grazing cattle, prairie grasses and wildflowers can be experienced with multiple senses.
The scents in concert with the UV film, scratch at the edges of default human interactions with the world. There are myriad ways to see and smell and there are myriad ways to live in our environment. all roses sleep (inviolate light) encourages viewers, smellers and dreamers to try to imagine what it is like to see the world from a non-human perspective. Our shared futures are interdependent, and it is vital to begin to see and smell the world differently. Engaging the sense of smell gives new ways to perceive realities and interact with the world. If we can begin to cultivate empathy and imagine how other beings smell, see and touch, we could start to understand one another and even collectively dream of better futures.
-Lindsey Sharman