• Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Printmakers present newly commissioned work from Montreal-based artist Nadia Myre responding to the 200th anniversary...
    Nadia Myre
    Were You To Pick A Star To Marry?, 2022
    Photo lithography with pearlescent pigment
    Paper Size: W57cm x H58cm
    Edition of 30
    This edition was not part of the exhibition

    Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Printmakers present newly commissioned work from Montreal-based artist Nadia Myre responding to the 200th anniversary of the Union Canal.

    The project - across print, installation and sound - explores reference points spanning Scotland and Canada, migratory routes started on the canal, indigenous story-telling, archival research methods, pattern, prose and song. The artist's research began with the encounter of Tales Of Nanabozho in a local library in Montreal - a book published in 1964 by Scottish-born émigré Dorothy Marion Reid after moving to Canada, who recounts stories of Nanabozho, a prominent trickster character to the Anishinaabe*, provoking questions of authorship and voice reverberating into the present. As an Algonquin member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, Myre's work brings to the fore the decolonial impulse inherent in the artist's practice, imprinting and entangling materials with meaning.

    Sited alongside the Union Canal and In Gallery 2 of Edinburgh Printmakers, Myre's multi-sited project is one of three major commissions featured as part of EAF 2022.

    Edinburgh Art Festival will be in coversation with Nadia Myre at Edinburgh Printmakers on Tuesday 2 August, from 6:30-7:30. Tickets are free, book here.

  • Tell Me of Your Boats and Your Waters – Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Go? is a...
    Nadia Myre, Things Left Unsaid, rawhide, roa dimensions varied, 2022

    Tell Me of Your Boats and Your Waters – Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Go? is a multi-sited commission from Montreal-based artist Nadia Myre, spanning print, installation, poetry and sound. The artist’s work weaves together reference points spanning Scotland and Canada, migratory routes started on the canal, indigenous storytelling, archival research, pattern, prose and song. Among these reference points is a preoccupation with what is missing, from the stories and histories that we have, and the forging of a personal account from the artist in lieu of what is not there. Stargazing and the historic use of celestial navigation by sailors (and tricksters) purposefully merge as a means of orienting oneself.


     

  • When the Union Canal opened in 1822, its primary purpose was to bring minerals (coal, lime, stone) into Edinburgh city...
    Nadia Myre, Working My Heart Out, rawhide, 2022
    When the Union Canal opened in 1822, its primary purpose was to bring minerals (coal, lime, stone) into Edinburgh city centre. For speedy construction and to reduce the number of locks, the canal’s route followed the contours of the land, exiting the city through three counties. In the canal’s prime, small industries such as tanneries lined the waters’ edge, whilst it was also possible for passengers to begin their migration to the so-called New World on the ‘Swifts’: Glasgow-bound boats that linked up to their trans-Atlantic voyage. A hulking wooden luggage warehouse built in the middle of the canal––used to separate passenger’s personal belongings from the murky industrial materials––becomes a visual point of departure for the artist. In imagining oneself in another’s skin across time and place, Myre has created a series of sack-like bags made from animal hides, alluding to trade, migration and baggage 567 carried from one place to the next.
  • Nadia Myre, Paper's Always Crooked, Lithograph series, 2022
    Nadia Myre, Paper's Always Crooked, Lithograph series, 2022

     Nadia Myre, Paper's Always Crooked, Lithograph series, 2022

  • Often pairing production methods usually understood as “craft” with contemporary art praxis, Myre’s practice incorporates the processes of moulding, imprinting, documenting, and weaving. The print methods underpinning the production of her new works feature substances which react, resist and to bind to one another. In testing their material properties, she points to ongoing dialogues around agency, assimilation, and co-existence.
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  • The exhibition continues with an installation at the Union Canal, adjacent to the Leamington Lift Bridge at the top of...
    The exhibition continues with an installation at the Union Canal, adjacent to the Leamington Lift Bridge at the top of Gilmore Park.
  • Interview with Nadia Myre. Video credits: Rachel McBrinn