Unlikely 2.0


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Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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Memory Tables
by Gil McElroy

Memory Tables was a site-specific installation mounted at the invitation of Struts Gallery, an artist-run centre in Sackville, New Brunswick in the summer of 1996. A small university town, Sackville lies at the edge of the Tantramar Marsh, an extensive wetland area that has for the most part been dyked and used for agriculture and which eventually drains into the Bay of Fundy. It's a picturesque, windswept area known for the quality of the salt marsh hay grown there, and for a waterfowl park in the heart of the town.

But the Marsh along which Sackville sits has a less picturesque, far bloodier, history. Two hundred years ago, two European powers intent on colonial expansion and hungry for the resources this continent offered clashed there, and as a consequence it has a history of heartbreak, great tragedy, and violence. In the mid-eighteenth century this place was home to French settlers who set about trying to agriculturally tame the wetlands. But following the British defeat of French forces at fortress Louisbourg in northern Nova Scotia, French settlers in the region - the Acadians - were forcibly removed from the area and sent into exile, their homes and farms put to the British torch. In semantic shorthand we call it The Expulsion, and though this region was eventually successfully settled by English immigrants, it is the Acadian experience that still frames regional, provincial and national history.

Memory Tables obliquely responds to this history. Three convention picnic tables made of cheap spruce were altered so that the tables sloped down toward one corner. It made sitting at them precarious and, more importantly, an activity of extreme self-awareness.

The table tops were used as sites for text which was burned into the wood, the parallel lines of 2 x 4 lumber functioning as a sort of lined writing tablet so familiar to children learning to write. The sloping of the tables was also meant to evoke the didactic signs - text and imagery on panels angled so as to make for easy reading - common to museums and historic sites.

Memory Tables

Table 1



IT IS, FIRST OF ALL, A PLACE WHICH TOUCHES, FOR EXAMPLE, THE OUTSIDE

OF THE FACE. IT IS A WORLD OF THINGS, OF BIRDS, OF SCATTERINGS FROM

ABROAD. IT IS ALL BRIGHTNESS AND SPIRITS



AND WIND, THE CURVING PATH OF.



Table 2



TO DREAM OF THIS PLACE MIGHT LEAD TO POLITICS, TO SPEAKING WITH

A PECULIAR ABANDON. THE WORDS, LIKE THE NIGHT ITSELF, AND AFTER

THE MANNER OF ALL NIGHTS, KEEP NEGLECTED LOVE WITHIN THEIR CHARGE.



TO THESE WORDS, AND TO THIS PLACE, COME KINDS OF MAGIC. AND A WIND

ONE TRIES TO FIT.





Table 3



THE WAY THIS PLACE FILLS THE SPACE AND SOURCE OF ALL NAME.

THE WAY THE RECOLLECTIONS OF SUCH A PLACE SETTLE INTO DETAILS

UNCOMMONLY PAINTED WITH COLOURS.

THE WAY THE LIGHT MINDS US.



THE WAY THE GEOGRAPHICAL HAPPENS, THAT'S WHAT.


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Gil McElroy has curated exhibitions for galleries and museums in Canada, and written for magazines in Canada, the United States and Australia. A selection of his essays, articles and reviews was published as Gravity & Grace: Selected Writing on Contemporary Canadian Art (Gaspereau Press, 2001), and in the anthology CRAFT Perception and Practice: A Canadian Discourse (Ronsdale Press, 2002).

McElroy is the author three books of poetry: Dream Pool Essays (Talonbooks, 2001), NonZero Definitions (Talonbooks, 2004), and Last Scattering Surfaces (Talonbooks, 2008). His art has been exhibited in galleries and artist-run centres across Canada.

He currently lives in Colborne, Ontario.