In an immersive video installation, a filmmaker will reveal the lives of tidal lifeforms that are often invisible to the naked eye.
With the use of microscopic underwater cameras, a Danish-born Canadian filmmaker from Toronto will show what lies beneath the surface of the sea as the life forms fight for food, territory and habitat in “a wondrous world of mayhem.”
For three days, artist and filmmaker Annette Mangaard, who is September’s Kasahara Gabriola Trust Artist in Residence on Gabriola Island, will exhibit ‘Sublimely Small’ at the Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre.
“This is an amazing place … And for me, living in Toronto, to be here with tides and everything is such a huge learning experience. I had no idea the tides changed like an hour every day,” Mangaard said, adding that while she’s been to the West Coast before, this project is the first time she’s been able to study the ocean so intimately. “In Lake Ontario, there’s nothing like this in it. If you put an underwater camera in there, you’ll get a bit of garbage and you might get a couple of small minnows if you’re lucky. But nothing like this. This is like a microscopic wonderland.”
One of the central points Mangaard wanted to bring to light with this project was to not only show how delicate and fragile the minuscule ecosystem was, but to highlight that work needs to be done to preserve it.
The filmmaker said she was surprised to learn how innately aware “all those little critters” were of her presence, even when she barely breathed and was completely motionless.
“After about 15 minutes, things start to emerge and move around and engage with each other. After half an hour, there is so much life happening there. But if I move just a fraction of an inch, or make the tiniest sound, it all disappears again for half an hour,” she said. “It’s giving me a life lesson in patience, this long observational act.”
Sitting and playing ‘the waiting game’ wasn’t too much of a challenge for the filmmaker, as she had fine-tuned the skill following an injury when her Achilles tendon was severed and she couldn’t use that foot for three months.
‘Sublimely Small’ is the first project Mangaard has ever worked on such a microscopic scale, and other than figuring when the best time was to capture the best lighting, the filmmaker said she was excited to learn about how the critters integrated into their environments and how they interacted with each other.
“They’re very territorial, I’ve discovered,” she said. “And another thing I found is that they are so strong. They’re like ants. These little crabs and things can move shells that are 20 times their size. And they just go under and lift them out of the way.”
For the exhibit itself, Mangaard said she would like viewers to feel as if they’re underwater. She plans to use projectors and plexiglass disks to manipulate light and movement, as well as enlarge critters that are “half the size of a baby fingernail” to roughly the size of a human body on screen. Her footage will remain unaltered in order to preserve the natural colour as it was recorded.
‘Sublimely Small’ will open at the Gabriola Arts and Heritage Centre on Friday, Sept. 22, from 7-9 p.m., and will continue Sept. 23 (11 a.m.-4 p.m.) and Sept. 24 (1-4 p.m.).
READ MORE: Gabriola Island artists explore how COVID and climate change intersect