Suzy Lake. Pre-Resolution: Using the Ordinances at Hand #9, 1984. Art Gallery of Alberta Collection, gift of Norcen Energy Resources Ltd., Calgary.
Tectonic Shifts
Michael Belmore, Millie Chen, Nicole Collins, Lara Felsing, Braxton Garneau, David Garneau, Jude Griebel, Suzy Lake, Sanaz Mazinani, Caroline Monnet, nimkii, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Sasha Opeiko, Kara Springer, Michelle Sound, Naomi Rincón-Gallardo, and Shaheer Zazai
December 3, 2026—April 4, 2027
Atrium, Bow View Hall, Dome, Ring Gallery
Considering the subterranean forces that shape, uphold, or unsettle inherited structures, Tectonic Shifts foregrounds artists whose works engage notions of disruption, resistance, eruption, and transfiguration to envision new pathways from the fragile conditions that hold our worlds together.
Much like the deep geological movements that the exhibition title evokes, change is often preceded by imperceptible shifts beneath the surface: pressures accumulate, fault lines deepen, and unresolved conflicts simmer until they reach a breaking point. What has long remained buried begins to surface, tensions threaten to boil over, and the possibility of different realities rises. Straddling social, political, emotional, and environmental terrains, the exhibition considers moments when existing systems and ways of being approach critical junctions, whether long-time coming or sudden and formidable.
Looking both beneath and beyond these moments of rupture, the exhibition asks us to consider what gives rise to instability, what sustains it, what might thrive within it, and what might perhaps emerge in its wake. Rather than considering uncertainty solely as a condition of crisis, Tectonic Shifts explores its potential as a generative force: a space in which established boundaries can be questioned, new conditions and connections forged, and alternative possibilities brought into being.
Whether through collective defiance, individual acts of interference, or more subtle processes of negotiation and adaptation, the exhibition explores how moments of upheaval can become catalysts for transformation – and how we might engage with, rather than simply withstand, the erratic conditions of the present.
