 Work

Sound Machines
Alison Beaumont, Doug Buis, Lucas Glenn, Daryl Kehler, Geri Matthew, Daniela O’Fee, Louis Thomas and Heather Yip
Salmon Arm Arts Centre
July 2 – August 21, 2021

In this past year, the pandemic has pushed us to find innovative ways to deliver the same cultural services to the community, and engage people as they struggle with an unknown future, isolation and concern for loved ones. Among the many new digital outcomes was the creation of the Marie Manson Virtual Artist Residency. Two artists were selected to receive the award over the course of a 4-month virtual residency in collaboration with Secwépemc Knowledge-Keeper Louis Thomas. Through bi-weekly zoom check-ins and thoughtful conversation about integrating Secwepemc land knowledge into settler artworks, Heather Yip and Lucas Glenn created their responses to the challenge, and are integral contributors to this exhibition. We are extremely grateful to Louis Thomas for guiding this residency, offering his extensive knowledge of this land and its history for these two artists to explore.

— Excerpt from Curator’s Statement, Tracey Kutschker


Listen to the plants and the animals. Try to learn their languages. Try speaking with them. Secwepemc Knowledge-Keeper Louis Thomas shared this advice with me, after I asked him how people, especially settlers like myself, could better relate to the more-than-human world.

I made this installation as a reflection on listening. It’s about the enmeshed trouble that I encounter when trying to listen to a more-than-human world. A plastic chorus frog perches on a piece of driftwood. An oil can floats in the pond. An old dirt bike tire is enmeshed in dirt and moss. This work documents strange, hybrid languages I heard along the south side of Shuswap Lake.

— Excerpt from Artist’s Statement, Lucas Glenn