This process of intermixing forces was the powerful through line of Tidelines<\/em>, an exhibition that presented works produced together by Maria Chekhanovich Nerssesian (Miri Chek), Kuh Del Rosario, and Cecilia McKinnon. The artists worked together in self-described gestures of repetition\u2014\u201cgathering, dehydrating, grinding, cooking, casting, and flocking\u201d\u2014with the materials that they had collected, including \u201ckitchen compost, mineral remnants, and household and studio waste,\u201d and then translated this concoction into \u201cdurational sculptures which desiccate, crystalize, melt, or host new life,\u201d to quote the statement that accompanied the exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharing a sensibility for the creation of delicately crafted, infinitely detailed immersive sculptural spaces, the artists transformed the gallery into an engrossing environment. The installation, presented as a series of sprawling islands, eddies, and beaches throughout the main room, resembled microcosms of coastal life. A freestanding arch made with hollow bricks lined with mica, a tapestry of gelatin and silk suspended on the wall, and an oozing bioplastic with powdered eggshell on the floor with a protruding piece of rebar seamlessly came together in constellations of micro-organisms that spoke to the complexity of tidelines as crossing grounds for biological life, natural castoffs, and other human-made relics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Striking in each of these sculptural vignettes was the complete dissolution of materials into a cohesive whole, a topography constituted of tiny pieces of matter that continuously drew its audience toward it. Each part of Tidelines<\/em> felt carefully considered, like a series of anthropogenic landscapes built piece by piece, the various earth tones flawlessly mixed with peculiar inorganic colourings. The currents evoked by the exhibition\u2019s title gestured toward coastal ecosystems and their status as canaries in a coal mine, considering their fragility and their propensity to address, among other concerns, the disintegration of pollutants into barely perceptible particles that become enmeshed with the everyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking to the identities of these particles, the artists offered an alphabetical list of the nearly one hundred materials used in the intricate installation. Mussel shells cohabited with recycled and twined plastics, polyester stood next to flattened soda cans and pomegranate peels, and rat poison was frighteningly placed in contrast with raspberry pur\u00e9e. In this present-day blend of atoms\u2014the unnatural mixed with the natural\u2014the altered lifecycles and structures generated by the artists suggested that the objects and shores on which they wash up are forever changed over time. By uniting their practices into a sculptural whole, Chek, Del Rosario, and McKinnon mimicked the movement of tidelines, convincingly letting percolate to the surface the many pieces and issues common to their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Art History at Concordia University, Montr\u00e9al, Didier Morelli holds a PhD in performance studies from Northwestern University, and his writing has been published in Art Journal<\/em>, Canadian Theatre Review<\/em>, C Magazine<\/em>, RACAR<\/em>, Theatre Research in Canada<\/em>, and The Drama Review<\/em>, among others.<\/p>\n![\"Tidelines\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/113_CR_Morelli_Tidelines_2005.jpg\")
Photo: Guy L\u2019Heureux, courtesy of the artists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Tidelines\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/113_CR_Morelli_Tidelines_2015.jpg\")
Photo: Guy L\u2019Heureux, courtesy of the artists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n