Last Species on Earth
By Shonee
5 - 30 August, 2022

Co-presented by Trinity Square Video, Lakeshore Arts, Whippersnapper Gallery, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, and SpaceMakerII.

Opening hours: Thursday - Saturday 6-10pm

Exploring topics of extinction and the commodification of nature, Last Species On Earth is a multi-channel video installation which weaves together a speculative reality where the last surviving specimens of plant and animal origin are kept in incubation chambers, situating viewers as zoo attendees. Last Species On Earth fragments the evolution of plants and animals as we know them today, following what natural selection would look like if nature were to adapt in total agreement with humanity's desire to domesticate it.

Ecologies & Cosmologies presents the 2022 Themed Commissions, which were produced over a summer residency. This year’s theme invites projects that explore and critique different forms of interdependency, networks of life, and destabilize fixed entities/identities/borders through technological, ecological or cosmological metaphors.

Ecologies & Cosomologies is a multi-site exhibition across Tkaronto. Featuring works by Sidi Chen, Jenna Reid + Cassandra Myers, Laura Margaret Ramsey, Shonee, Sarah Holloway, and Maria Simmons

The selected projects explore various topics, including; networks of care; spiritual, physical and digital connections in human and nonhuman relationships; environmental speculative fiction; and deconstructing trauma through ecological metaphors.

In reference to the theme of interconnectedness, the selected projects take place in different venues across Tkaronto, culminating in a constellation of public-facing spaces, inextricably linked to the structure of the city and bringing together a number of local artist-run communities.

Shonee (born Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes) is a Montreal-based Costa Rican-Canadian digital media artist. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Film Animation from Concordia University, where she is currently an MFA candidate in Intermedia. She is the 2021 recipient of the Emerging Digital Artists Award and has presented work at MUTEK, National Film Board of Canada, Société des arts technologiques and Filmgate Miami. Growing up on the edge of a rainforest in Costa Rica nourishes her creative practice as her work strives to resurrect the meaning of nature’s place in her own life now as both an urbanite and multidisciplinary artist. Within the virtual worlds she creates, 3D embodiments of organisms borrow shapes, colours, and stories from plants and animals within our own world, while remaining singular. This conscious decision is intended to inspire a newly discovered appreciation of the endangered, non-human world that humanity often takes for granted as her portrayals seek to embody humankind’s seemingly objective and narrow misunderstanding of nature in this time of ecological crisis.

The Themed Commission is made possible by the EQ Bank. With special thanks to ed video media arts centre, Art Metropole, and Scarborough Arts.