Quick Pick — Persimmon Blackbridge at Richmond Art Gallery

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Persimmon Blackbridge, “Speak No (emergency),” 2021-2024, detail, multimedia installation (photo by Della McCreary, courtesy of Richmond Art Gallery)

Since the 1970s, Persimmon Blackbridge has been creating art that critics describe as queer, feminist, and disability art.

Her newest exhibition, Speak No (emergency), is on view Jan. 18 to Mar. 23 at Richmond Art Gallery in Richmond, British Columbia. 

Curated by Sean Lee and co-presented with Tangled Art + Disability, the show looks at the collective despair around the devastation of climate change and features 150 doll-sized sculptures made of wood and found objects — Pepsi cans, bird skulls, Barbie parts — which have been transformed into an army of figures.

“Blackbridge draws from specific incidents like the 2021 Lytton wildfire and the early 2000s mountain pine beetle epidemic that decimated forests across BC and Alberta, as well as global phenomena like the growing mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” according to the gallery statement.

Blackbridge's work has been shown across Canada, the US, Europe, Australia and Hong Kong. The winner of the 1991 VIVA award for visual arts, she won the Emily Carr Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000. ■

Persimmon Blackbridge, Speak No (emergency), is on view Jan. 18 to Mar. 23 at Richmond Art Gallery in Richmond, British Columbia

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