Robyn Love

Unhistoric Acts 2021
Site-specific installation / Installation in situ
Site 12 – Fish flakes / Vigneaux, Bonavista

Robyn Love’s installation, Unhistoric Acts, embodies Biennale efforts to present works that are meaningful within critical contemporary art practice and also within the context of this rural area. Characteristic of her artmaking, Unhistoric Acts involves site specificity; needlework techniques; giving voices to people overlooked due to gender, race, economic status; and challenging history. For this exhibition she examined the learning and labour historically required of people living with land and sea, focusing on the fishery as it was developed by European colonizers over five centuries. 

The artist’s research revealed extensive documentation of men’s roles, down to lists of individual crew members. No similar record was made of women, the primary source of on-land fishery labour in salting and drying cod on the flakes while raising children, keeping animals, gardens and homes. Love addressed this erasure of women with “female” means and materials. For Unhistoric Acts she embroidered names of women listed in the 1935 Bonavista census on fabric sleeves, then slipcovered every length of wood on a traditional fish flake that sits on the Town of Bonavista waterfront. Local residents, male and female, found relatives’ names among the embroidered casings. The stories and emotional responses this prompted amplified Love’s gentle revision of history.

PG

This project was presented in partnership with the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. The artist acknowledges the support of ArtsNL and project assistance from Jane Walker and local embroiderers.