Toronto Craft Alert

Opening Reception at MADE 7pm to 9pm, Thursday 17th June
867 Dundas St West
Exhibition continues to 31st July

MADE presents: Collection a ceramic installation by Susie Osler

Plate collections abound. Some collections serve as souvenirs of personal travels, others as repositories demonstrating wealth, taste, or sophistication. Susie Osler’s collection explores the fragments of memories of birds seen while driving around Mexico this past winter.

In 16th century Europe – an era of global exploration/exploitation and colonial expansion – the “Kunstkammer” or “Cabinet of Curiosity” was regarded as a microcosm of the world and a memory theater. It conveyed symbolically the patron’s control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction.

Osler is fascinated by the compulsion to collect, document and categorize ‘experience’ and information. “In my own life I have gone from a casual observer of birds, to someone who enjoys the challenge of spotting and identifying them by their markings and vocalizations. Now the names are compiled on lists and further information (behavior, habitat, etc.) about those names is sought. A collection of words. For what reasons?”

Perhaps the names are collected because a detailed visual impression of these birds may not be retained by memory alone. Nor can the bird itself be captured. Her drawings based on these names fashion a reassembly of experience and provide a method of mental capture and containment. Osler wants to know what she has seen and strives to contain ‘it’ somewhere accessible. Insofar as a photograph may reference a moment in time, her scribbled notes are worked into her ceramic dishes which form a new collection as they also serve memory’s reference.

For further information or images contact:
Shaun Moore or Julie Nicholson @ MADE
T:416 607 6384
E: info@madedesign.ca