Ashes to Flowers…the Breathing

Description:

Shauna Beharry’s exhibition Ashes to Flowers…the Breathing involved a month of gardening work in Western Front’s backyard, and interventions at a few other discreet locations within the building, particularly the kitchen. Beharry’s project consisted of transforming the garden into a kantha textile.

Working primarily with Indigenous plants, Beharry followed the pattern of her mother’s sari to symbolically rejoin her skin and her mother’s to the land. This gesture reflected Beharry’s attempts to situate herself within the dominant discourse around culture and identity that she did not see herself reflected in as an Indo-Canadian. 

Ashes to Flowers…the Breathing demonstrated Beharry’s expanded approach to “public art” as an activity which constructs a public through participation and direct contact, finding its ultimate existence in the memory of that public. 

The exhibition concluded with a performance ritual on the summer solstice that transformed the backyard into a moon garden and mausoleum.