Offering

In Russell and Lillian Hoban’s 1964 children’s book, Nothing to Do, Frances opossum, bored and complaining, receives a gift. It was a “something-to-do” stone – an object to keep close, to spark imagination, or center on for meditation. The book is out of print and hard to find, but I read it often as a child. In my memory, though I cannot verify this, the stone opened worlds within worlds. Tossed, it would land and create a place of focus, acting as a landmark wherever it settled. Peering close, a drama revealed itself – industrious ants, cavernous and mysterious cracks, constellations of debris, a point on a fractal as big as the universe. In the comfort of this smaller matryoshka doll within a set of nesting dolls, Frances was no longer bored.

In these past months, our lives have shrunk in some ways and expanded in others. We watched as data sets consumed individuals, compiling them in jagged lines which aggregate into curves. We have been told to take care of each other; to check in on our neighbours; to change our behaviour; to stay within our immediate circles. We make these moves under a blanket large enough to cover the globe. We have been isolated and slowed, separated from the things we rely upon. Under added pressure, the fissures in our systems gaped to lay plain inadequacies and oppressions that have been there all along, embedded and steeped; insidious. With hope and anger and love for each other, we demand better.

With regular exhibitions postponed, and our modes of engagement altered, a space emptied. Like water, this exhibition flowed in, carrying traces of every recent encounter, redirection, and barrier. Gathering works from the Art Gallery of Peterborough’s Permanent Collection, Offering includes recent and older acquisitions, some of which are being shown for the first time. These works consider transformation, interconnection, and perspective. Using repetition, juxtaposition, text, addition, subtraction, and fractured space, these works speak to our collective experiences, hopes and fears, and ultimately, to our humanity. Toss a stone and let it settle.

Fynn Leitch, Curator, Art Gallery of Peterborough