Join Anne Riley as she reflects on what matters, on creating art amid a pandemic, and on imagining alternatives to extractive practices.

Riley touches on her work as part of the Drift: Art and Dark Matter residency and exhibition that involved visiting SNOLAB’s deep underground astroparticle physics experiments that are “feeling for” dark matter. The depth and layers of soil and rock blanketing SNOLAB’s underground research facilities are essential for filtering out particles and radiation to aid the direct detection of dark matter. To make energetic space for healing and connecting with human and more than human relations, Riley’s artistic strategies suppress the “background” of colonial “noise” in science and art.

She speaks to dark matter garden, an installation that draws the Drift: Art and Dark Matter exhibition outside of the institution’s walls—and out of institutional exhibition timelines—offering an alternative to the Western ways of thinking about art and science, while engaging viewers in place-based thinking, land sensitivity, and reciprocity. The darkness and softness of soil are vital for plants to take root and sprout. Sign up to save your spot in this free program.