The Brock University exhibition Small Movements connected the 2022 Canada Summer Games with turtle conservation and the waterways shared by athletes and wildlife.
Associate Professors Amy Friend and Donna Szoke developed separate but related projects inspired by Shelly, the Games’ turtle mascot.
Children’s turtles animated through collaboration
Szoke worked with Grade 1 and 2 pupils from Jeanne Sauvé French Immersion Public School. After a virtual visit to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre, the children created their own turtle images.
Visual Arts student Emily MacDonald and graduate Julie Luth scanned and animated the drawings. The completed animation was shared with the children, the animators, the conservation centre and the Canada Games.
The process connected wildlife education with the direct, colourful mark-making of young artists.
Photography made at the surface of the water
Friend examined the relationship between watersports and turtle habitats. Her project used camera-less photography, digital images, water samples and recorded sound.
Light-sensitive paper was secured to a kayak so that water and movement could act directly on the photographic surface. Other images were taken at the level where paddles enter the water and turtles swim.
Research assistants Laurie Morrison, Sarah Martin and Qiushuang Xia collected samples, made prints, photographed local waterways and recorded sound across the Niagara region.
Small Movements used the Canada Games as a starting point rather than its final subject. By examining the same water from the perspectives of athletes, children, artists and turtles, the exhibition revealed how recreation and habitat occupy one connected environment.