locating the little heartbeats
Painting into animation and projection. 2018.
The natural world bares witness to human and non-human activity for millennia, which could guide us back to bush knowledge. Reminding us of the critical power that nature has over urban landscapes, how it will continue to flourish and override any human built structures. In the dense cityscape you can experience small organic life pushing through concrete and cracks to make its way towards the light. Our population could learn from the knowledge the land has to tell us. I think about the ways in which it breathes, feeds us and sustains us. This work is excavating plants that are part of the flora and fauna of Manitoba, creating something magical to witness the power of nature and how it impacts us our lives. Each plant was hand drawn then painted and digitally transferred, to be painted out frame-by-frame and photographed to create the growing and dying aspect within an animation program. This includes hundreds of images that are sequenced visual stages of the process of growth and death that reminds us of our deep and profound connection to the earth.
Solo Exhibition at Gallery 1C03, Winnipeg, Canada in 2019.
Locating the Little Heartbeats: Julie Nagam solo exhibition. Winnipeg: Gallery C103, 2019. Curatorial essay by Niigaan Sinclair.
Excerpt: “Métis visual artist Julie Nagam’s locating the little heartbeats is an exhibition that recognizes the history of Indigenous medicine and the power of the earth while standing as a condemnation on environmental invasion and degradation. Through animation, light, sound, and projection, Nagam re-creates the vibrancy of life cycles of fauna and intricately displays how every inch, every leaf and bud, comes with a story.”
Exhibition Reviews
Sarah Jo Kirsch. “Critipeg: Locating the Little Heartbeats. The Uniter, January 17, 2019
Jenny Western. “Julie Nagam.” Border Crossings Issue 150 (May 2019)