July 16 – October 30, 2021
Solo exhibition by Jill Price
Jill Price is an artist, curator, and educator and is currently investigating “unmaking” as a creative act, exploring new materialism in helping to dismantle colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal approaches to the land. Jill Price has previously exhibited at OMAH in our Annual Women’s Day Art Show and Waterline/Timeline. Unfurled marks Price’s first solo exhibition with OMAH.
July 16 – October 30, 2021
IMAGE: Reminiscent of 19th century wallpaper patterns, this hand-drawn ink wallpaper by Jill Price presents a patterning of fur and animal forms. It will be part of a colonial parlour installation in the exhibition.
This is an exhibition that playfully speculates on how animals might choose to engage with, frame, label and question natural history objects held within the archives of museums. The North American Fur Trade lasted approximately 350 years between 1530 and 1880. The Atherley Narrows, a site that sits between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching, was a source of fishing and hunting for local Indigenous people as far back as 5000 years ago. With the advent of the fur trade and a visit by Samuel de Champlain in 1615, the Narrows became a key site of cultural and capital exchange and led to the eventual formation of Orillia as a European settlement in 1840. Drawing on narratives and word play based on animals hunted, trapped, and exchanged, Unfurled utilizes objects and materials held within OMAH’s historical collection, as well as objects created by Price, to discuss how the thriving abundance of animals led to the material wealth of their prime predators, human beings.