The Distance Between

Solastalgia is an intense pain in response to ecological devastation, along with the psychological desolation caused by losing one’s deeply interconnected environment. Coined by Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht, it puts words to the relationship between ecosystem distress and human distress, an emotive response likened to being homesick while still at home. Seeing the drastic change and destruction of a natural place can leave intense feelings of loss, disconnection and sorrow.

The Distance Between, a two-person exhibition on view at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary until March 19, explores the brokenness of our relations with the more-than-human world. Jude Griebel, who splits his time between New York City and Bergen, Alta., and Montreal-based Lorraine Simms, expose anxiety about climate change and highlight the pressures extractive systems have placed on our ecological relationships.

Griebel’s installation, Next World Emissaries, is a series of monumental figures that tower above the debris of industrial buildings, seemingly marching towards a soft pink orb painted on the far wall. Rising from the floor and illuminated by the gallery’s light, it symbolizes the beckoning glow of a new dawn. Affective in size, the emissaries represent different “nuisance” species in the urban landscape and have a playful air. 

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Jude Griebel, “Next World Emissaries,” 2019-2021

installation view (photo by Chelsea Yang-Smith)

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Jude Griebel, “Next World Emissaries,” 2019-2021

detail of installation (photo by Chelsea Yang-Smith)

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A cockroach clutches a bouquet of daisies. A thicket of barnyard grass waves a white flag with its leafy hand. A blue bottle fly holds a childlike drawing of the Earth. A scarlet pimpernel struts through the rubble on rooty appendages. Bringing up the rear, a brown moth waves two large oak leaves. Its title, Next World Emissaries: Gypsy Moth, includes the former common name of Lymantria dispar – recently removed as a recognized common name by the Entomological Society of America due to its use of an ethnic slur against the Romani people.

Standing at the end of this parade, I wonder where these characters will go, what  histories they will carry with them, what new world they are seeking and what stories they might tell about ecological apocalypse. Next World Emissaries is ecotopian in nature, symbolizing the resilience and readiness of new ecosystems to emerge from humanity’s industrial rubble.

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Lorraine Simms, “Elephas maximus, AMNH # 39082 (Elephant vertebra: C1-Atlas)," 2019

graphite on acid-free paper, 21” x 30” (photo by Chelsea Yang-Smith)

The second gallery displays Shadowlands, meticulously rendered drawings by Simms that consider endangered and threatened animals. A morphing vanitas, they transcribe the bones and pelts of a spectrum of animals from various habitats, each a life-sized rendering of specimens at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The images shift like shadows layered one upon another, creating new forms and shapes. The flickering conjures thoughts of ghosts or spirits.

In contrast to Griebel’s humorous futuristic vision, Simms reminds us of the realities of ecological devastation. Her care and attention evoke simultaneous love and grief: solastalgia. Shadowlands is both funereal and haunting.

The spectral and immense figures that roam the space of The Distance Between embody eco-anxiety and grief, emotions that run like an undercurrent through our everyday lives as climate change rapidly threatens our world. In tying together work by these two artists, the exhibition offers an opportunity to consider the detritus left in the wake of ecological collapse and what futures may emerge from it. ■

Jude Griebel and Lorraine Simms, The Distance Between, at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary from Jan. 13 to March 19, 2022.

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