Beyond the Edge at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa

Recently, on a beautiful summer day, I visited Beyond the Edge: Artists' Gardens, an exhibition at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. Curated byJudith Parker and Mary Faught, the exhibition features five projects by six artists (Barbara Brown, Karl Ciesluk, cj fleury, Deirdre and Glynis Logue, and Deborah Margo) on six sites throughout the Agriculture Canada Research Plot. Using existing and new plant material as a medium, the artists cultivate a hybrid of artistic and scientific research across ten acres of the historic working farm and research centre founded in 1886.

Karl Ciesluk, Mechanical Spiral, 2014, installation view

Beyond the Edge: Artists' Gardens is the inaugural project of the Canadensis Botanical Garden Society, a volunteer organization working to institute a national botanical garden on the same site. At present, the site (and the exhibition) offers a pastoral, if not rural, respite from the urban environment in the very heart of the city.

I wrote about the exhibition for the July 15 Akimblog, which can be read in its entirety by clicking on this link.