Mouthless Spring by Melanie Barnett                                 July 2nd-August 30th

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Artist Statement

 

When I was a child every spring the frogs would wake with the thaw of the algae-rich dugouts. I would scale the rotting, lichen-cloaked wooden fence that divided the maintained farmyard from the overgrown and ignored pasture. A graveyard of rusted out cars and tractors lined the perimeter: forgotten relics of a 1970s farming practice, kept on hand “just in case”.

 

I would don my rubber boots and wade out through the reeds into the flooded plain. The brown grass and last year’s bulrushes would tower above my head. With the canopy of scattered aspen cloaking me from the sun I would make my way to an old log that sat at the edge of the dugout. There I would sit, listening to the frogs.

 

When I was fifteen years old I stood at the end of the driveway waiting for the school bus to make its way down the gravel road. It was that year that I realized there were no frogs. Their songs went silent, and that silence persisted for years.

 

Since the mid-1900s grain agriculture has shifted from working with native systems like mychorrizaes (mutually beneficial relationships between plants and fungi) to commercial fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals. These actions have consequences – cereal grains no longer easily form relationships with mychorrizal fungi due to the use of commercial fertilizers. When outbreaks of pests swarm the fields and pesticide is sprayed it is species like the Northern Leopard Frog that bear the ecological brunt.

 

Agroecosystems appear on the surface to be idyllic, natural ecosystems. My home should not be a patchwork that cloaks the rolling hills. Instead, it is supposed to be a sprawling aspen forest with trembling branches that reach to the clouds. Now, all that remains of this Aspen Parkland are islands of trees that circle farmyards and pastures. They are vestiges that echo what once was.

 

My work speculates on ways in which agriculture can better coexist with the ecosystems the industry is set in. I create ceramic sculptures that imagine new futures and integrate science fiction into a rural setting. In my work I explore how these artificial ecosystems can incorporate native plants and contemporary agricultural practice, rather than exiling them to ditches and sloughs. 

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Artist Bio

 

Melanie Barnett is a ceramicist of settler background whose work draws upon themes of ecology, agronomy, and climate science to create sci-fi worldbuilding experiences that speculate upon the future. She holds an MFA from NSCAD University and a BFA Honours in Ceramics from IshKaabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg Department of Visual Art, Brandon University. Her practice is currently based on Treaty 4/7 Territory in Medicine Hat, AB.

 

Barnett’s work has been included in national and international publications and has been exhibited across Canada. Her work has been generously supported by The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2025, 2022), Canada Council for the Arts (2024), the Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarship (2023), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Canada Graduate Scholarship-Masters (2023).