Hannah Rowan\u2019s practice is informed by her extensive research on bodies of water, exploring the liquid relationships between bodies<\/em> (natural and physiological) and the geological and ecological systems with which they interact. Through sculptural and performative works that combine installation, sound, and video, Rowan seeks to represent the ephemeral processes of water\u2019s transformation and to chart its aqueous movements. She envisages the body, human or non-human, as a permeable vessel through which she explores notions of intimacy, loss, and memory. Her works often evolve from artistic residencies, notably in Greenland, Svalbard, along the St. Lawrence River, and in the Atacama Desert. Several of these works are brought together in Tides in the Body <\/em>(2023), a project reflecting on the shifting and transformative nature of materials. Notions of transmutation traverse the sculptures and performance films, articulating the animacy, transience, and flux of solids, liquids, and gases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Vessels of Touch <\/em>(2021), the artist\u2019s hands, cast in bronze, become vessels for transformation: a block of ice melts, dripping through the fingers of the cupped hands; perched opposite, a single hand holds a water-filled glass basin, its contents slowly evaporating. The hand figures again in Prima Materia <\/em>(2019), this time holding a glass ball\u200a\u2014\u200acast in its molten state to bear the artist\u2019s fingerprints\u200a\u2014\u200ain which fragments of lava from the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland are suspended. Tentacular<\/em> (2022) is a sculpture comprising eight ceramic tentacles, realized by Rowan during a residency at Est-Nord-Est, in Qu\u00e9bec, and arranged to suggest the fragmentary form of an octopus. The animal body is interpreted in porcelain, its glaze evocative of the cephalopod\u2019s viscosity. For its part, the performance film Tides in the Body<\/em> (2023), shot along Greenland\u2019s coastline, shows the artist embracing blocks of ice in the folds of her naked body, wading through waves of ice close to the shoreline, intimately sharing the space with other bodies. Lying adrift on an iceberg in a full-bodied embrace, Rowan becomes one with these bodies of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated from the French by Louise Ashcroft<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author, curator, and contemporary-art consultant Maude Johnson holds a master\u2019s degree in art history from Concordia University and a bachelor\u2019s degree in art history from UQAM. In her projects, she delves into performative, critical, and curatorial practices by exploring the methodologies, processes, and languages within multidisciplinary approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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