Haunting the Undermined Zone | Nanaimo Art Gallery

The land remembers. The land reminds. The land haunts.

Listen.

Phantoms and supernatural beings draw us in, before whispering of dark things we would rather ignore. Death, fear, and grief make up their repertoire as they warn us of dangers and difficult times. As they reveal uncomfortable truths, ghosts become vital forces of reflection. Their raspy warnings instil in us the strength we need to live in a perilous world.

In Nanaimo, it is rumored that the ghosts of fallen miners lurk in the shadows. But the phantoms of colonial resource extraction reveal themselves through a different kind of haunting: collapsing mine shafts, massive clearcuts, and declining fish stocks. These spectres warn against a worldview that only sees value in economic gain.

This perspective is exemplified in the Canadian Commission of Conservation report, Forests of British Columbia (1918), which states: “Fields, buried minerals, or standing forests are of no value whatsoever except for the wealth which, through industry, can be produced therefrom.” More than a century later, this perspective continues to haunt us.

These days, resource industries hire public relations specialists to sanitize this outlook, yet the spirits on the land refuse to be erased. Their hauntings echo through dense tangles of invasive ivy, across barren clearcuts, and into dark hollows of abandoned mines.

Through sculpture, drawing, painting, and video, the artists in Haunting the Undermined Zone speak in solidarity with the phantoms embedded in the land. They invite us to sit in the shadows, listen to the stumps, and discover what remains.

Haunting the Undermined Zone is the final exhibition through which Nanaimo Art Gallery asks: How can we live together?