From: Jennifer Hanson, thenorthbaybay.ca staff
In the midst of some record-breaking rainfall, the White Water Gallery has announced a new art exhibit.
“It’s a celebration of life, of nature, and of beauty” artist Kateri Beckah said Tuesday. “We call it: ‘Water.’”
The event, which launches Saturday with a wine and cheese gala, is both “innovative and interactive” explains Beckah.
“The whole Gallery will be literally filled with water. As soon as you walk in, you’ll be ankle-deep in Main St. runoff. From the door to the back, it’s nothing but 100% H2O. Minus the garbage, of course.”
To add colour to the otherwise brown and murky North Bay water, several pieces of Main St. garbage can be seen bobbing around. Pop cans, chip bags, plastic wrappers and dog poop float across the Gallery’s wet interior, adding brilliant flashes of blue, yellow and brown.
If you look closely, vast tracts of cigarette butts cover the floor underneath the rippling waves.
“We didn’t send out for those, they’re 100% authentic, organic Main St. cigarette butts” Beckah explains. “It cost us a little bit, but I think it makes the whole thing more real.”
Free to the public
The event will run for an unspecified amount of time and there is no cost to see the exhibit. The public is being advised that a good pair of boots will help them enjoy the exhibit more, and in an exciting twist, are encouraged to bring their own Subway wrappers and chewed bubblegum to add to the display.
Is it the brown, tepid water that makes the piece so original? Or is it the bobbing debris which makes the exhibit a true representation of North Bay and Lake Nipissing?
No, says Beckah.
“That would be the abandoned fishing nets.”