Cianalas/Homesick Exhibition Reception

Join us for the opening reception of Cianalas/Homesick, Erin Scott’s thesis exhibition, on Saturday, May 2, from 2 to 4 pm in the FINA Gallery at UBC Okanagan. Erin is a doctoral student in the IGS program, Digital Arts and Humanities theme.

Featuring a long videopoem titled “my ancestors and my children”, as well as smells, sounds and visuals of Lewis, the exhibition is an immersive experience that considers belonging across two geographic contexts (Lewis, Scotland and Kelowna, Canada), and the intersections of colonialism, language, and identity therewithin.

Cianalas/Homesick is a body of work that brings the Isle of Lewis to Kelowna, and features videopoems and a cruach mhònach (small structure of drying peats). In Erin Scott’s earlier exhibition, Belonging/Buntanas, she considered the colonial lines of poetry, history, story and the Hudson’s Bay blanket stripes. Comparatively, Cianalas/Homesick presents the spiral: a sacred symbol in Celtic mythology and worldview. Using experimental practices for mould making, Erin has re-constituted peat moss sourced from Home Depot into rectangular slabs of peat that replicate the Gaelic peat drying process. The peats’ material composition reflects the challenges of belonging to lands across great distances. In the cruach mhònach on Lewis, they are the bog: slabs of rich, black peat. In her settler Canadian cruach mhònach, the peat is store-bought, mixed with a binder, and moulded into a representation.