Snail work, or give the colours what turns you please (dans les c\u00e9r\u00e9monies)<\/em> (2024) is a large floor installation made of sand saturated with pigments ranging in colour from deep red to bright yellow to emerald green. The sand is meticulously arranged in long, slightly uneven, scalloped stripes that reference the Turkish and Persian tradition of marbled end-paper, which was appropriated by European colonial empires and then became widespread in Victorian-era books. Involving submerging paper in a tray filled with floating paints, marbling techniques are known for their unruliness and unpredictability. Rather than doing away with those characteristics, Shannon Garden-Smith embraces them. In the context of this paper-based tradition, the term \u201csnail-work\u201d refers to the delicate snail-shell\u200a\u2014\u200alike spiral patterns created by turning motions. Garden-Smith invites viewers to perform snail-work themselves by swirling the sand in the work, which enhances the indeterminateness of the marbling process and carves out space for the murky and slow-paced destruction of the temporary in situ installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snail-work (for the lake)<\/em> (2024) proceeds from the same methodology and ambition, only this time the work is to be read and experienced in relation to Tkaronto\u2019s changing waterfront. Made with cooler-toned pigmented sand, this artwork operates as a subtle criticism of capitalist-driven sand extraction. Often thought to be an infinite \u201cresource,\u201d sand, Garden-Smith tells us, is in fact quite limited. Here, too, the audience is invited to participate in the installation by performing snail-work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both of these installations challenge the staticity of art by welcoming audience intervention as a way of un<\/em>doing and re<\/em>doing the historical motif and the artist\u2019s labour. The \u201cruining\u201d or \u201cdisfiguring\u201d of the works is integral to their ultimate becoming. Garden-Smith positions the act of unravelling as an invitation to step outside of the Global North\u2019s capitalist-prescribed temporality and consider the resource extraction that it requires. Her snail-works are underpinned by slow temporalities that render viewers collectively more attuned to contemplation and micro-movements, all the while relinquishing control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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