Water as a Spirit and a Teacher: Film, Poetry and Sound
The three art displays in the main poster and exhbit hall were curated by Hannah Marder-MacPherson, Saskia Morgan, and Ava Williams of Fleeting Form Studio, a student-led arts and ecology collective created during their time at McGill University.
Bringing together artists working across sound, film, poetry, and installation, the exhibition invites audiences to consider water beyond its treatment as a resource, instead foregrounding its role as teacher, kin, and co-creator of worlds.
Sponsored by a grant to Roxane Maranger from:
Uapukun Mestokosho (film)
Bio: Uapukun means “flower” in Innu. Uapukun Mestokosho grew up in Ekuanitshit on the North Coast, a small corner of paradise. She completed a program of humanities at the Kiuna institution, with a major in Aboriginal studies. Her pride and passion for her culture are at the heart of her commitment to her community. She wants to pass on and share her experiences and outdoor adventures with anyone who is interested.
Short film title: Nipi utaiamun (The voice of water)
Description: Nipi utaiamun (Voice of Water) is a tribute to the healing and spiritual virtues of water. In the film, Uapukun Mestokosho listens to water as both teacher and relative, evoking its power to soothe, to remember, and to carry the voices of generations.
Erin Robinsong (poetry)
Bio: Erin Robinsong is a poet and interdisciplinary artist working with ecological imagination. A PhD candidate at Concordia University (Montreal), Erin’s research-creation work focuses on regenerative, relational and embodied poetics.
Poetry installation title: Echoes in the shallow deep
Description:
"Oceanic Parts" was written in the wake of two deaths, trying to join our worlds back together, or feel the continuity of life and death realms.
"Rain on the Inarticulate" – a play on TS Eliot's raid on the inarticulate - is influenced by Astrida Neimanis's concept of hydrofeminism and considers my body as a meeting point for waterborne memories and toxins that far exceed me in space and time, and the implications of this in a world that fantasizes bodies as discrete.
"Kitchen Danceparty" is a transcript or record of a dance that erupted one night with three friends. Most dances are lost to history, or given away to the air, maybe they power the world, but I've always been fascinated by what happens to space and thought when dancing
The poem installation was designed by the curators, and invites audiences to sit with and touch the water and poems within.
Lina Choi (Soundscapes)
Bio: Lina Choi is a Montreal-based artist originally from South Korea. She holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in London, UK. Her artistic research explores bodies of water through sound, focusing on aural imagery and embodied listening. She creates immersive, meditative experiences through performance, installation, and audio composition.
Piece: Under the Waves II
Under the Waves II is a 15-minute immersive soundscape composed from field recordings captured at the Lachine Canal and rivers across Quebec, combined with fragments of watery sounds gathered during the participatory workshop Soundwalk along the Water, which took place in 2023 as part of the DARE-DARE programme. Using binaural microphones, the work creates a soft, three-dimensional listening space that surrounds the listener, evoking the feeling of being held in a calming, dreamy, and meditative watery world that invites a sense of familiarity and instinctive comfort.
Artist Philosophy: I dive into waters: the sounds of rivers, streams, rain, the ocean, and the deep beneath. My work traces the profound human connection to water, guided by a single question: Why do we instinctively long for it? As philosopher Astrida Neimanis states, “We are bodies of water.” Our existence begins in the watery womb, and I believe that this primordial state imprints a fundamental affinity for water throughout our lives. The sensations of floating, rhythmic pulses, and muffled sounds experienced in amniotic fluid remain within us, shaping our relationship to water long after birth. Beyond this personal connection, we are beings primarily made of water, and this water flows through all of us, continuously cycling through evaporation, condensation, rainfall, and movement in oceans, rivers, and within our own bodies. This ever-moving nature of water dissolves the boundaries between individuals, linking humans, animals, and ecosystems into a shared, fluid existence.
