Stranded, Dredge & Regulator

Fae Logie’s sculptural works examine notions of imbalance within a warming Arctic marine ecosystem and its geopolitical territory. Often, our first glimmer of environmental harm is that something seems out of place, Logie explains.

‘Stranded, looming nine feet tall speaks of a fragile equilibrium. Cast from a single cetacean vertebrae its skeleton has no definition, no distinct tail or ribcage, no scapula or skull. Weathered, as if dug from an icy grave, an untimely death, we question its spinal deformity. The height of Stranded coincides with the length of a female beluga, yet this hybrid marine organism takes on mythological proportions. As if a display specimen for comparative anatomy, its upright orientation also speaks of a personal narrative. Witnessing a beluga whale kept in a small aquarium pool, her body was positioned vertically in the water. For hours she would slowly spiral upward, drift down, spiral up. Over and over, trapped within her space.’

‘There are multiple hazards to the precarious balance for Arctic marine life due to human impacts and climate change. Bioaccumulation and biomagnifications of pollutants and micro plastics is prevalent in whales. The high solubility of carbon dioxide in cold-water temperatures means acidity levels are rising at twice the rate of the southern oceans. The resultant chemistry threatens the structural integrity of shellfish. As depicted in Dredge, their dissolving shells and subsequent mortality is having a negative impact on a short vulnerable food chain. Stranded, left behind, in a pace of uncertainty.’

Regulator (below) poses as an antique wall clock, its hands stilled at minutes to midnight, capturing this need to hold back time. It insinuates notions to regulate or to control. The clock face encompasses the territory north of the Arctic Circle. Countries extending beyond this line are hand drawn in white ink, seemingly floating on the fragile paper surface. There are no indications of states or borders, no names to locate a fixed point. Arrows define currents and gyres transecting the pole, regulators of climate lost in an open sea. In absence of a pendulum, a tray from a scientific balance suspends, motionless; a mirrored surface weighs a replica of a battleship originating from a childhood game board. Its reflection poses as a tiny misplaced iceberg. Beneath the tray, a thin pulsing vein of blue light coils down within a glass funnel to flow out the V-shaped bottom, as through the hull of a ship. It terminates with a plumb knob dangling just off the floor making reference to transit instruments or processes and sensory apparatus for ocean mapping and data collection.

While Russia redevelops military bases, the United States increases northern capabilities. Though most regard the North West Passage as International, Canada sees it as domestic waterways, asserting its naval presence. Asian and Nordic states are part of this highly strategic geopolitical positioning. Regulator addresses these issues of sovereignty and security in a warming Arctic, being reframed by Indigenous claims. Hanging in the balance, this eminent “ticking clock” is set. The pulsing light, a warning.

Born and raised on the West Coast of Canada, Fae Logie is an interdisciplinary Canadian artist whose research and material-based practice operates within the registers of the scientific and the poetic, the conceptual and environmental.

Embracing elements of sculpture, drawing, photography and video she utilises the juxtaposition of found and manufactured objects within the context of real and imagined spaces. Inquiring into how people create a sense of identity though the ecology and history of place, Logie examines alternative ways of knowing and engagement with our environment – be that wilderness or urban settings, human or non-human. Ensconced in critical observation, her work often employs an element of jest, subverting a purely objective inquiry by questioning the systems and methodologies that dictate our lives.

Interested in making correspondences between local and distant landscapes, Logie has exhibited in artist-run and municipal galleries across Canada as well as participated in international artist residencies and shows in Iceland, the UK, New Zealand and Norway. She was a founding member of the Vancouver-based land art collective, Art is Land Network in 2011.

Logie holds a BSc from Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, BC), a BFA from the University of Victoria (Victoria, BC) and an MFA from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC). Biology is a discipline that continues to inform her work. She has been the recipient of research and production grants from the British Columbia Cultural Services, the Canada Council, the Vancouver Foundation and the Banff Centre of the Arts.

Logie continues to live and work on a rural island setting off Vancouver, located within the traditional unceded territories of the Tslei-wa-tuth, Squamish and Musqueam First Nations.