Acclaimed artist makes Canadian debut on her beloved island — Unama’ki, Cape Breton
We Come from the Sea by Joan Jonas to run at Eltuek Arts Centre and Inverness County Centre for the Arts from August 10 to October 12
Joan Jonas in 2022.
Credit: Maximilian Geuter
Joan Jonas, a New York-based artist, began her career in New York’s vibrant downtown art scene of the 1960s. With Manhattan as a home base, Jonas has sought retreat in the highlands of Unama’ki, Cape Breton Island for more than fifty years, an area that has heavily influenced her decades-long artistic practice.
Today, Jonas is a world-renowned contemporary artist, celebrated as a trailblazer of video and performance art and one of the most influential American artists of our time.
This summer she will make her Canadian debut in Unama’ki, Cape Breton with We come from the sea, running at Eltuek Arts Centre and the Inverness County Centre for the Arts from August 10 to October 12, and presented in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
“I’m really happy that my work was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. I’ve lived in Cape Breton, Canada in the summers since 1970. I’ve been so inspired and nourished by the people and the landscape,” Jonas said of the upcoming exhibition.
“Much of my work is made in Cape Breton, in the woods, on the beach, and on the road. I look forward to sharing my work with the people of Canada. It means a lot to me.”
At the heart of the exhibition is Moving Off the Land II (2019), a powerful, multi-sensory installation that pays homage to the ocean’s beauty, biodiversity, and deep fragility. Drawing from years of research and filming in Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and aquariums around the world, Jonas invites us to experience the ocean as something intimate, alive — and part of who we are. The installation was part of a major retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) until early July, when it was packed up and shipped to Unama’ki, Cape Breton.
“Jonas is celebrated around the world, and Nova Scotians deserve to share a part of this distinguished artist’s remarkable work,” said Sarah Moore Fillmore, CEO of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Last year, Mary Lynk, a producer for CBC Radio’s IDEAS, visited Jonas at her summer home overlooking the ocean in Inverness, where they discussed, among other things, Unama’ki, Cape Breton’s influence on her art and, in particular, on Moving Off the Land II, an ode in part to the ocean, its creatures, and the Island itself — presenting the ocean as a threatened ecosystem, a repository of mythology, and a site for transformational encounters with animal life.
“I look out there every day and it’s always different… every sunset is different. The water’s a different colour,” Jonas told Lynk, remembering her first visit to the Island with a group of artist friends and her then-partner, Richard Serra, the acclaimed sculptor. She immediately fell in love with it.
“Up here, everybody’s in touch with the landscape in a spiritual way. The people who live here, Cape Bretoners, they love it, right? They love the landscape. And the magic in the landscape.”
Listen to the full IDEAS episode, titled, ‘Arts Icon Joan Jonas on Her Great Muse, Cape Breton’ (October, 2024) below:
