Audio and Sonic Exploration of Migrant Plants with Alexandra Gelis

This program is open to University of Toronto Scarborough students registered in ESTC36H3: Knowledge, Ethics and Environmental Decision-Making.

Artist Alexandra Gelis invites student collaborators to join her for an immersive, hands-on exploration of the phragmites field at the U of T Scarborough Campus Farm. Participants will help the artist gather sounds and visuals of the plants using microphones and video cameras, investigating the inner landscape of this non-native plant. This event is an opportunity to reflect together on invasive species and alternative approaches to land care, particularly in reducing the use of harmful chemicals that not only destroy plants but also harm insects, birds, animals, and poison our soils, waters, and air—impacting all life, including people.

The materials gathered will later be used in a sound and video performance by Alexandra Gelis based from Outdoor School's mobile sculpture Art Farm Stand in the Doris McCarthy Gallery, as part of the closing reception for the exhibition Art Farm on Saturday, December 7.

The U of T Scarborough Campus Farm is located on the north side of campus, east of the Toronto Pan-Am Sports Centre, and beyond the Morningside Athletic Fields. The 10-acre, brownfield site is currently dedicated to land-based teaching, research, and community engagement on campus.

Alexandra Gelis is a Colombian-Venezuelan-Canadian media artist whose research-based, process-oriented practice spans film, photography, drawing, and media installations incorporating custom-built interactive electronics and sound. Her single-screen films and modular immersive non-fiction installations delve into the ecologies of various landscapes through personal field research, examining socio-political interventions. Gelis collaborates with communities across the Americas, focusing on the interplay between plants, people, and power in the context of colonization and globalization. Her concept of "Migrant Plants" explores plants as political allies in struggles against colonialism, war, and migratory and racial regimes, documenting the autonomous behaviour of these plants. Gelis's projects have been exhibited internationally across North and South America, Europe, and Africa. She holds a PhD in Environmental Studies and Urban Change.