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And In Spring We’ll Wait for Lilacs

The New Gallery, Calgary, AB

March 10 - April 22, 2023

“Desire is a refusal to trade in damage; desire is an antidote, a medicine to damage narratives. ”**

And in spring we’ll wait for lilacs is a collection of visits over instant coffee, time spent resting in newly thawed grass after a long winter's sleep, and relatives guiding one another's hands through brambles and soil. Each painting acts as reassurance that with ease and patience, better days will come. They acknowledge regret as a longing for something different, and remind us of what’s still kept safely and tenderly. Not with the absence of grief, but with acceptance of what’s felt between self-compassion and care.

 

Through the works, gentle attempts are made at navigating intergenerational loss and longing, in the presence of enfranchisement and personal displacement. Looking to moments and promises that still linger between past and present, the work gives space to the complexities of grief, a gratefulness for visiting home, and exchanges of trust; that each overlapping story that has been sowed will be held, and in spring there will be lilacs again.

Photo Documentation by Danny Lu. 

**A Glossary of Haunting, Eve Tuck and C. Ree (page 647-648). Tuck, E., & Ree, C. (2013). A Glossary of Haunting. In 1250032121 926014821 H. J. Linn, 1250032122 926014821 T. E. Adams, & 1250032123 926014821 C. Ellis (Authors), Handbook of autoethnography (pp. 639-655). Left Coast Press.

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