You start your day with a punch, inserting a scrap of paper into the small clock-card machine. Years have passed since it last kept time or a manager was on site to validate it, but somehow the stamping mechanism still functions. All creatures find comfort in some form of routine, even you, now especially. You trust that with each daily stamp your readiness for the tasks ahead are being registered, if only for yourself.
Every workday is governed by the same responsibilities: you scavenge and you sow. Your earliest memories are of a Mother recalling a proverb about idle hands and ungodly work, adding an emphatic, “I’ll sleep when I retire!” before quietly retreating to her garden. That moment will forever shape your understanding of how to spend your time. As you put on your white uniform and smooth it over the contours of your body, you try to imagine what retirement would entail in a future—a now—so uncertain.
In the beforetimes, you would never have worked like this: through two hypothetical fifteen- minute breaks and a lunch, with no concept of overtime, entirely alone. There was time to distract yourself with images—a plentiful supply in a seemingly endless scroll. The work seemed less urgent then; yesterday’s rest was a risk of different proportions.
Today, all tasks are “within scope.” Your hands move differently, in actions determined by other images. Fingers dig, rather than swipe. Hands that once waved now cup the earth and shield the fledgling greens. As you work, you improvise hymns for all that is left around you: the sky ablaze, the thirst underfoot, and the imperfect vessels you collect and arrange wherever the light is brightest. You repeat the words find and fill in a melismatic arc, as though your voice might divine a sign that the seasons would once again be nuanced and equally measured. In truth, you use your voice to dowse for everything… water pooling in vacant parking garages… mineral deposits to sustain crude alchemy… hidden life overlooked in culverts and abandoned storefronts.
With your hood up, your hands gloved, and respirator in place, you walk the margins of the city. You think of all the abstract investments that humans before you once defined as savings. The old practice of measuring the worth of one’s labour with a numerical value is a concept that you were never sure you wanted to understand. The holding of that value not in one’s hands, but in a box… a bank… an ark. How strange to understand saving only as a noun.
Above: Laura St. Pierre, Heat and Light/Chaleur et lumière, 2022. Archival inkjet on Hahnemuhle photo rag, 101 × 76 cm.
All that You Change Changes You / Tout ce que tu touches, tu le change and related programs were conceived as an opportunity to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Conseil Culturel Fransaskois and the contributions made by Francophone artists to our region. The exhibition was co-curated by Nicolle Nugent and Crystal Mowry and presented at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, March 22 – August 11, 2024.
Laura St. Pierre explores her relationship with the natural environment through a multidisciplinary art practice. Her installations, sculptures, photography, and public works simulate scavenger activity within Canadian regions particularly significant to her personal history and experience. St. Pierre’s work has been exhibited in major art exhibitions such as the Alberta Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Bonavista Biennale, and Manif d’art – La biennale de Québec. Solo exhibitions of her work have been presented at AKA Artist-Run, Saskatoon; Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto; Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario;, and University of Saskatchewan College Galleries, among others.
Crystal Mowry (she/her) is the Director of Programs at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. She has written texts for various artist-focused books on the work of Deanna Bowen, Shary Boyle, Brendan Fernandes, August Klintberg, and others. In 2024 she was shortlisted for the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence. She lives in Treaty 4 (Regina) with her family.
This article is published in issue 41.2 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue
Since you're here
BlackFlash exists thanks to support from its readers. We are a not-for-profit organization. If you value our content, consider supporting BlackFlash by subscribing to the magazine or making a donation. A subscription gets you 3 beautiful issues per year delivered to your door, and any donation over $25 gets a tax receipt. Your support helps compensate our staff and contributors for their hard work.
