Sherri Chaba, "Retreat", Art Gallery of St. Albert, Alta., July 3, 2014 to Aug. 2, 2014

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Photo: Mark Freeman

Sherri Chaba, "Retreat", 2014

Sherri Chaba, "Retreat", 2014, mixed-media installation, dimensions variable

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Photo: Mark Freeman

Sherri Chaba, "Retreat", 2014

Sherri Chaba, "Retreat", 2014, mixed-media installation, dimensions variable

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Photo: Mark Freeman

Sherri Chaba, "Treehouse", 2014

Sherri Chaba, "Treehouse", 2014, mixed-media installation, detail (inside view)

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Photo: Mark Freeman

Sherri Chaba, "Mountain", 2014

Sherri Chaba, "Mountain", 2014, mixed-media installation, detail (inside view)

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Sherri Chaba, Retreat,

Art Gallery of St. Albert, Alta., July 3, 2014 to Aug. 2, 2014

By Agnieszka Matejko

Building forts and shelters may be one of the most joyful and universal of childhood memories. I recall making such structures by a stream in my grandmother’s yard. These rickety constructions held an unsurpassed promise of sanctuary. Such memories arise forcefully as I enter Alberta artist Sherri Chaba’s installation: an enchanted space filled with mysterious fabrications created out of sticks, moss, chicken wire and other materials readily found around her rural home. 

I eagerly explore the gallery. A spider-net wire structure coils down from the ceiling. It conceals a mirror that extends space deep beyond the floor like an illusory rabbit hole. A tree house made of discarded boards hovers gracefully on stilts. A soft, moss-covered yurt, or sweat lodge, invites me to enter. Warm darkness envelops.

But is this feeling of sanctuary illusory, a momentary respite from harsh realities? Black fabric lines the shelter’s dome. Minute lights punctuate it like stars. These peepholes open onto tiny apocalyptic images of decimated fields and forests: black poles stand silhouetted against smoggy skies.

Chaba, who earned a Master’s degree in 2007 from the University of Alberta, has spent most of her life in rural Alberta and has witnessed industrial encroachment on the land. This is the focus of her artist statement, which expresses hope that viewers situate themselves within current “dialogues of ecological and societal sustainability.”

Retreat can be positioned within the framework of contemporary eco-art, a loose category that continues to evolve, although it often seems like “a trackless thicket, tangled with unanswered questions.” While that line, from James Elkins, the American art historian, refers to the state of contemporary art criticism, his observation could equally apply to much Canadian eco-art, where ambiguity and nuance prevail.

Take, for instance, Jeane Fabb, a co-founder of the Quebec artist-run centre Boréal Art/Nature, who created a snow installation atop a frozen lake to refer to natural cycles. Or Vancouver-based Charisse Baker’s series of seasonal outdoor performances that use a red thread as a metaphor for connectedness. The elusiveness of such work contrasts with the robust activism of American ecofeminist artists like Aviva Rahmani, whose trans-disciplinary collaborations have resulted in the reclamation of damaged land.

From a visual and sensory perspective, Chaba’s show glows with warmth and humanity; it absorbs and enchants. From an ecological standpoint, it is polite to exasperation. Must artists continue to situate themselves within the discourse of sustainability? A federal study has just confirmed oilsands toxins are seeping into the Athabasca River. A few days ago, news of another catastrophe: massive volumes of effluent from a copper and gold open-pit mine have spilled into British Columbia’s Quesnel-Cariboo river system; the impact may never be reversed. In the context of such environmental urgency, artistic detachment seems like fiddling with metaphor and nuance, while the environment – our collective sanctuary – burns.