The Fiction of Permanence
Curated by Rachel Deiterding
January 14 - May 14, 2027
“If change is inevitable, why is it resisted rather than celebrated?” – Centre for Sustainable Curating, Objects as Temporal Entities: Acquisitions Addendum, 2024.
Image Credit: Shannon Garden-Smith, process image from Dust Ruffle (V), pigmented, found dust (sourced from Western University campus), acrylic panel, 24” x 36”.
Time is a powerful force that museums often work against. Collections hold artworks in perpetuity for the public through systems of care and control that rely on the impossible task of slowing time. They keep an illusion of permanence alive despite the inevitability of change.
In The Fiction of Permanence, artworks evade the aspirational promise of eternity that collections uphold; change is intended, materials misbehave, technologies become obsolete, and things break. These sticky relationships to change undo false perceptions of stability and consider how acknowledging time, material degradation, and the lifespan of artworks can be better integrated into healthy collections management practices and support the long-term sustainability of the collection.
Putting academic research from the Centre for Sustainable Curating into practice at McIntosh Gallery, the exhibition presents work from the collection that requires further research and conversation to determine how it should be cared for and displayed. Other artworks focus on experiments with materials and processes that make them difficult to collect, questioning the practical limits of collections. Together, work from inside and outside of the collection prioritizes change as a central framework for collections care and begins to imagine what a collection less intertwined with permanence could look like.
Additional materials and curatorial texts will be available on this webpage over the course of the exhibition.
Featured artists:
From the collection: Carl Beam, Rae Davis, Wyn Gelensye, David Merritt, Françoise Sullivan, Colette Urban, and Tim Whiten.
Other works: the Centre for Sustainable Curating, Shannon Garden-Smith, Jake Kimble, Joy Wong, and Xiaojing Yan.
This exhibition and its associated programs are part of Connecting to Collections, a project generously supported by Catherine Elliot Shaw.
Related Programming
Drawing In Dust: Drop-In Study Break
Tuesday, December 15
Drop-in sessions: 1-3 pm, and 4-6 pm in the Scholars Lab Creation Suite on the ground floor of the D.B. Weldon Library.
All day, our fingers glide along the glass of our phone screens. We leave a temporary, ever-changing drawing in finger grease that indexes the movement required to swipe, tap, zoom, type, scroll.
As we move through cities, also comprised of so many surfaces of glass, drift particulate matter composed of tiny particles of dirt, sand, metal, skin and who knows what else, gradually settles onto our glass architectures, forming a drawing surface. In a new building, the dust surface might show evidence of an installer’s touch. Or, on a dusty storefront window, perhaps a passerby feels compelled to write a message, leave a handprint, draw a little symbol.
Take a break from studying and contribute to a collective, gestural drawing by leaving your traces in a surface covered in dust gathered from across campus. No experience or drawing skills required!
The artist will be present to guide the activity. Participants may come and go as they please, but will be required to wear gloves and dust masks while drawing. All materials will be provided.
The completed drawing will be installed as part of an artwork by Shannon Garden-Smith in the D.B. Weldon Library from January 14 - May 14, 2027. The installation will be part of The Fiction of Permanence, the winter exhibition at McIntosh Gallery.
Free | Open to the public
Opening Reception
Thursday, January 14, 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Remarks 6:00 pm
McIntosh Gallery
Join us in celebrating our winter exhibition, The Fiction of Permanence, featuring artworks from the McIntosh Gallery collection in conversation with new works produced for the exhibition.
Free | Open to the Public
McIntosh Gallery and Art Now! Present: Navigating Materials, Navigating Permanence
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, 1170
How do materials shape contemporary art practices? And how do they challenge how museum and gallery collections form?
Join select artists from The Fiction of Permanence in conversation with Curator, Rachel Deiterding. This panel will explore how each artist approaches their materials. Some methods are focused on longevity, exploring how materials behave over time and producing objects that are favourable for collectors. Others are experimenting with new materials whose rate of degradation is unknown, inadvertently (and sometimes advertently) challenging established conventions of collecting.
Panellists will include: Shannon Garden Smith, Jake Kimble, Dr. Kirsty Robertson from the Centre for Sustainable Curating, Joy Wong, and Xiaojing Yan.
Free | Open to the public
Let's Talk Collections: The Fiction of Permanence Exhibition Tours
Let's Talk Collections: The Fiction of Permanence Exhibition Tour Part 1
Thursday, March 4, 5-6 pm
Let's Talk Collections: The Fiction of Permanence Exhibition Tour Part 2
Saturday, April 3, 2-3 pm
Free Parking on campus in select lots on the weekend.
The Fiction of Permanence is an exhibition that is about change and that embodies change. Join Rachel Deiterding, Curator of Collections and Special Projects, for this pair of exhibition tours to get an inside look at the exhibition and explore its shifts and variations. Each tour will focus on a different group of artworks, and together, they will cover the entire exhibition.
Both tours will explore some of the most challenging objects from the McIntosh Gallery collection; the objects that have been impacted by the passing of time and have required conversation, experimentation, creativity, and conservation to bring them to life. Beyond the collection, we will discuss other contemporary practices by artists whose materials and processes demand an expanded approach to collecting.
These examples unsettle the idea of the permanent collection. Instead, they illustrate how collections and art objects are constantly in flux and require standards of care that prioritize change over stasis.
Let’s Talk Collections is a public conversation series that makes visible behind-the-scenes work with the collection, with a focus on the ongoing multi-year collections audit and review. Both tours will be accompanied by time for questions and discussion about the future of the collection.
Free | Open to the public
Art Breaks: The Fiction of Permanence
Tuesday, March 9, 2:30-2:50 pm
Tuesday, April 6, 2:30-2:50 pm
Take 20 minutes from your day for a quick and refreshing art break! Join our gallery animators for an inside look at their favourite artworks. Afterwards, get back to your day, or if you have time, stay to learn more!
Free | Open to the public
