Maps can embody a hubristic fantasy of exploration and discovery, with their authoritative interpretations of place, even places very recently encountered by the travellers or cartographers who drew them. This confident expression of often-inaccurate knowledge has been significant in exploitation and colonization throughout history. Catherine Bolduc disrupts this problematic narrative with darkness, uncertainty, and erasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition space recalls the tent of an early explorer. In the middle of the gallery, a trestle table is covered with maps, drawings, and samples; the walls are lined with photographs, archival maps, and tourism posters that Bolduc has altered and drawn over. The place to which these objects refer, though, is not simple to define.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolduc produced this work during her time as artist-in-residence at Gros Morne National Park, on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland. This landscape is composed of barren rock thought to be part of the earth\u2019s crust pushed to the surface through plate tectonics. Perhaps it was this desolate atmosphere, or its connection to the origins of the planet, that led Bolduc to read the diaries of Christopher Columbus and traverse the park using lunar maps. A video shot from the artist\u2019s point of view shows her struggling to walk with a map of the moon\u200a\u2014\u200astrands of hair whip into view\u200a\u2014\u200ato a soundtrack of howling wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n