The Uncanny Outdoors presents contemporary Canadian artworks from the MacLaren’s Permanent Collection that render the natural world strange. The uncanny nature of each work emphasizes the ways in which our understanding of the landscape is conditioned by how we enjoy, settle and extract value from it.
The landscape tradition in Canadian art has helped create a national self-image of Canadians as strong, resourceful stewards of the land. However, our relationship to this land is complicated, tied to colonial expansion and the exploitation of natural resources. The artists in this exhibition portray a landscape that is both familiar and unsettling: repressed ideas about the natural world come to light, revealing uncomfortable truths about our tenuous relationship to the land that sustains us.
The artists represented in this exhibition include Lois Andison, IAIN BAXTER&, Blue Republic, Ed Burtynsky, Jane Buyers, Robert Hengeveld, Laura Millard, Takao Tanabe, Tony Urquhart and Tim Zuck.
