Time to Harvest!

Well there is still more UN/maker interviews to be published and I am slowly updating the UN/making Dictionary before I begin developing a comprehensive library that can help creatives UN/make themselves from systems of harm as well as assist in the care and repair of the planet, but I have finally reached the final stage of my research-creation Ph.D. entitled From Unsettling to UN/making: A Critical Methodology for UN/making Anthropocenic Perspectives and Gestures Towards Land.

Union Gallery Advertisement designed by Abby Nowakowski

Scheduled to submit my final thesis paper on September 30th, UN/MAKING LOSS: Collecting Seeds for the Future is the

final performance in which I will collect seeds generated by the garden I planted at Union Gallery on Queen's University Campus. Join me on Thursday the 21st from 12-3 p.m. to ensure wildflower seeds will be planted and bloom again next year.

Participants will be able to help collect seeds to take and receive one of my newly created sheets of seed paper incorporating seeds collected from the garden earlier this summer. Everyone is also invited to share the results of their planting with the @unmakingnetwork during the spring and summer of 2024.

Interested in where some of my seed paper has been planted so far? Visit my From Unsettling to UN/making Google Map to check out people who have taken sheets of my thesis to place in the ground elsewhere. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=18t1Ppa166Bc1CM8KbEvsxHZy-7rY2c8&ll=2.8274638509097088%2C0&z=2

Podcasts, Plantings and Unveilings - Oh my!

Thank you to those who have been following along with the UN/maker Series to date. The second podcast interview is now live! Entitled UN/making as Speculation and Collaboration, I spent a lovely hour with Guelph artist Lisa Hirmer discussing the importance of taking a variety of human and more-than-human perspectives into consideration when creating so as to help manifest more inclusive and just spaces for being and doing. Click on the links above to check out all the interviews, listen to the podcast or check out some of Lisa's amazing projects. Again a big thank you to the MacLaren Art Centre for sponsoring this series of interview by allowing me to use their professional zoom account!

Other good news, the garden I planted with my PhD thesis handwritten onto seed paper seems to be growing! Although still reflecting the grid like shape of how the pages were laid out, milkweed is one wildflower that is beginning to visibly disrupt the colonial division of space. I would like to express sincere gratitude to Morgan Wedderspoon and Abby Nowkowski of Union Gallery for caring for From Unsettling to UN/making while I spend the next four weeks immersed in writing and editing.

For those of you who live in Simcoe County, I would also like to invite you come to the unveiling of The Jack Pine (Group of Seven), 2022 on Monday, June 19th from 6-8 pm. Starting as a temporary gallery installation for an exhibition entitled Imagining Sustainable Futures curated by Akosua Adasi, this adaptation of Tom Thompson's painting The Jack Pine, now has a permanent home on the homestead of Petra Hewson.

For those of you who would like to follow along a little more closely, you can follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/unmakingnetwork/ where I often publish the performative aspects and outcomes of my research. To check out some of the works I have been creating as a result of unmaking older works, visit my Saatchi page to see my latest collages and paintings. Hope to see you on Monday, June 19th!

Jill

Time for Planting a Theory for UN/making

Union Gallery Garden before composting. Fall 2022

Well it has been a long journey and yet there is still so much to do. On Tuesday morning, my husband and I will use our 25th wedding anniversary to dig out the remaining daffodils from the Union Gallery Garden in preparation for planting my PhD thesis in the afternoon. Still needing to finish writing my outcomes and conclusion, letter press an UN/making Methodology, update my website with the UN/making Dictionary and upload two more interviews for the UN/maker Series, the summer will seem long but go fast! To everyone who has supported this enriching and laborious line of research and action, this includes all those who also informed the outcomes of my MFA, I am extremely grateful. Please be sure to join me on Tuesday, May 16th starting at noon, either onsite outside of the Stauffer Library and Union Gallery or follow my online feed on Instagram as I begin to lay down pages of my thesis into the newly enriched soil of the Union Gallery Garden. Written with water-soluble graphite on handmade seed paper created from old works on paper generated during my MFA, human language / theory will begin to disappear with the garden's very first watering so that words become action and expressions of plant life can begin to take root. To read more about the project visit the Union Gallery Website and keep up to date on the progress of the garden and my thesis completion via the UN/making Network Instagram page.