Sylvia Ziemann’s exhibition Keeping House at the End of the World is at the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery (MJM&AG) until August 28, giving Moose Javians time to check out an intricate, disturbing, and somehow highly relatable experience.
“COVID hit and all of a sudden I had all these ideas for little interiors that respond to what it must be like for everybody,” Ziemann said. “Everybody’s different. What’s it like to be told ‘you have to stay in your room now, and you can’t go out, and you can’t have any more fun’?”
Ziemann is a visual artist originally from Edmonton. She earned a diploma in painting at the Alberta College of Art and Design, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Regina, where she is now an instructor in addition to being an established artist.
Ziemann has been exploring the “culture of fear” that modern people live in for many years, she said.
“There’s always something new, there’s always a war, or a disease, or an economic collapse,” Ziemann said. “Why do we live in this constant state of fear, and who’s benefitting from it? But maybe it’s human nature to be afraid.”
Her work asks questions about how we control our fear, or if that’s even possible. Do we have the agency to decide how we are, or are we simply reacting to — and being irresistibly formed by — a news cycle that magnifies the bad and minimizes the good?
“I think my work takes the things that can be fearful, like personal illnesses, the body falling apart, the world falling apart, mental illness, and then take that and look at it and say, ‘how do we move from there? What can we do with that? This is the way the world is, right?’ And how can we make it a better place for ourselves and others?”
Ziemann has captured the feelings of people across the political spectrum. One diorama shows fungi sprouting on the floor of a bedroom, self-medications such as alcohol and cough medicine spilling from a drawer, and a miserable rabbit huddled in bed.
Becoming depressed and isolated was a common reaction to the stress of the pandemic. Some few were able to enjoy it. Others refused to accept restrictions, marching for what they saw as fundamental freedom. On the fringe, those who fear violence stocked up on guns, ammunition, and body armour, eyeing their neighbours and waiting for the government to attack.
Ziemann unites these apparently antagonistic views by plucking at the common thread: fear.
On that hopeless rabbit’s bedroom wall, the clock shows mere minutes to midnight. The world’s Doomsday Clock is, in fact, 100 seconds to midnight — the future is not a guarantee.
Visitors can even lean down to peer inside a box diorama title “A Glimpse of Your Afterlife.” Many worldviews are represented, reflecting human existentialism and the need for answers.
Poetry scrawls across the surface of surreal ink drawings combining thoughts, vital organs, weapons, and industry. A smokestack heart pumps a loop, one chamber called Panic Now, another named Things Will Change.
A drawing title “The World is on Fire” asks Now what will you do? In the margins are lines like We are all weak creatures and Art is the only thing that can make the pain stop while leading you to a purpose.
Ziemann has accomplished a space that combines paranoia with hope, suspicion with trust, and shows viewers that we are all human, we are all neighbours, and we have more in common than we often believe.
She also believes art is a collaboration. The reactions of viewers are legitimate — it isn’t her place to argue for seeing things a certain way.
“In a way, art is like children,” Ziemann said. “You know, you put them out into the world, then they become their own story. And I hope the best for them, and they go out there and they do their thing. But then, people read into them.”
Meet Sylvia Ziemann and Todd Gronsdahl at the opening reception for their joint exhibition on June 18 at 1 p.m. Space is limited, so register in advance on the MJM&AG website.
The museum will host a virtual In Conversation with Ziemann on June 22. The Zoom link can also be found on the website.
Learn more about Todd Gronsdahl’s Saskatchewan Maritime Museum on MooseJawToday.com.
Ziemann will teach a puppet-making workshop on August 13 and 14. Register for that workshop at mjmag.ca/art-class/puppetmaking.
