Megan Kammerer
Curator / Writer /Researcher


Exhibitions
  1. To our reunited future
  2. Memories of the Mountain
  3. Shadow Games
  4. Spoiled Milk
  5. Every Beloved Object
  6. Prelude / Requiem
  7. Anoxic Memory
  8. Sutures
  9. Yesterday is Melting


Writing


Info

Megan Kammerer (she/her) is a curator and writer based in Toronto, Canada. She has held various positions with the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, The Bentway, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Blackwood Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Guelph where she worked to support critically engaged exhibition programmes across Southern Ontario.



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2. Memories of the Mountain





Memories of the Mountain
Visual Arts Centre  of Clarington
September 28 - December 15, 2024

Curated by: Megan Kammerer
Artists: Studio Pararaum
(Meng Li + Linda Zhang)
Writing: Peter Sealy
Installation: David Wigley
Photo Documentation: LF Documentation

Design & Fabrication: Natalia Zuchniak, Georgia Barrington,  Jonathan Anderson, Joella Poitras, Danielle Grabke, Reese Babcock, Kayla Ward, Reese-Joan Young, Amy Yan, Johanna Weber, Kalen Schellenberg

AI Technology, Photography, Film Team: Christian Flemm, Félix Michaud, Meimei Yang, Craig Scorgie, Jae Seo, Fangming Wang, Respectful Child, Stefan Müller

Fabrication Support: Meimei Yang, Nora Alkeyat, Carol Kaifosh, Amanda Bly, Alexander Verni, Adrian Kenny, Buthaina Ahmed, Alda Escareno, Sander Alblas, Pierluigi Pompei at the European Cermaic Work Centre


 Every built volume requires a negative space, elsewhere. The city expands, the mountain fades. Piece by piece, it is carved away, leaving behind the voids—forgetting there was a time when the mountain was a part of us. How long does it take to re-member what has been forgotten?

Geology has its own kind of entropy. Everything is gradually wearing down. Little by little, wind erodes rock, water carries away the riverbanks. This irreversible process continuously metamorphosizes our earth. Yet, by extracting natural materials for the building of our cities, we intervene with geological entropy in a very different way. Stones and rocks are manually carved out from the great mountain to supply the construction of thriving cities. As a result, the landscape is reshaped by endless quarries. While mining technology advances faster than ever, the seemingly immovable mountain, formed slowly over millions of years, now undergoes new anthropocentric-geological transformations with inconceivable speed.

In March 2021, Studio Pararaum began visiting Gipsbergwerk Schleitheim, a former gypsum mine in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The collaborative’s co-founders Meng Li and Linda Zhang have since scanned three caverns inside the decommissioned site using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to capture hyper-realistic casts and digital mouldings of the location. These impressions became a point of departure for a series of new material operations produced by the collaborative. Using ceramic casting, analogue filmmaking, digital photography, and generative artificial intelligence, Studio Pararaum brings the mine’s haunting voids into our presence. Li and Zhang challenge us to confront the mine’s existence on a global scale, contesting with geological time to evoke a profound sense of sublime estrangement within their sculptural installations.

In December 2023, the entrance to Gipsbergwerk Schleitheim collapsed, rendering the mine inaccessible. Where the cave ends, memory begins.

Memories of the Mountain is organized by the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Ontario and the European Ceramic Workcentre.