Fathom Sounds was formed to think both collectively and long-term about the health of water and the role artists play in responding to urgent ecological, political and social issues that collect around water. They build relationships between beings and across disciplines, in the hopes of reversing the effects of marine pollution and extractive industries on marine life and water. Salt Stained Streaks of a Worthwhile Grief conjures the depths of their relationships with water through sound design, animation, drawing and multi-channel video.
Fathom Sounds is Alana Bartol (http://alanabartol.com), Genevieve Robertson (http://genevieverobertson.com), Kat G Morris (http:/katgmorris.com), Nancy Tam (http://nantam.ca) and Jay White (http://draworbedrawn.com).
Alana Bartol comes from a long line of water witches. Her site-responsive artworks explore divination as a way to question consumption-driven relationships to land, water, and what are colonially known as natural resources. Bartol's work has been presented in exhibitions and festivals across Canada and worldwide. In 2019 and 2021, she was long-listed for Canada's prestigious Sobey Art Award. Of Scottish, German, English, French, Irish, and Danish ancestry, Bartol is a white settler Canadian currently living as an uninvited guest in Mohkínstsis (Calgary, AB) the ancestral lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the territory of Treaty 7, also home to the Tsuut’ina Nation, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, and the Métis Nation, Region III.
Kat G Morris is a half Filipino 2D animator from Northern BC. She graduated in 2018 with a BMA in Animation from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She is currently based in Vancouver where she freelances and collaborates with her friends at Flavourcel Animation Collective. Using hand-drawn digital animation, Kat explores the limits and possibilities of narrative storytelling through symbolism, soundscapes, and fluid, illustrative motions.
Genevieve Robertson is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in environmental studies, working between place-based, collaborative, and contemplative material processes. Her practice explores elemental, geologic and more-than human worlds, reckoning with the schism between primordial time and the current moment of frenzied petro-capitalism, climate change and crumbling ecologies. Robertson’s work has been presented in exhibitions, conferences and publications internationally. She is of British and French ancestry and currently lives on the traditional and unceded territory of the sn̓ʕay̓ckstx Sinixt Arrow Lakes and Yaqan Nukij Lower Kootenay Band peoples.
Nancy Tam is a sound artist and co-creator of interdisciplinary performances. She is a founding member of the interdisciplinary performance collective A Wake of Vultures and Toronto-based Toy Piano Composers collective.Her compositions, performances, and collaborations have toured in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Norway, Hong Kong, the U.S. and throughout Canada. Nancy works and lives as an uninvited guest on the unceded territories of the S?wx_wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
Jay White is an interdisciplinary artist, animator, recovering academic, activist and storyteller with training in environmental engineering. His work prioritizes respectful and ethical collaborations, and the interweaving of human and more-than-human perspectives. Jay’s installations have exhibited internationally and his animated short films have won awards internationally. His animations have won Best Animated Short at the Worldwide Animation Festival, and a longlist entry for Academy Award nomination. He is of Mi’kmaw and European descent. His mother's family is from Wjipine'katik (St. Bernard’s) on the south coast of Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). He currently lives as an uninvited settler in unceded Skwxwú7mesh territory.
