What does it mean to care for the land?

Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom offers contemporary reflections on care and the environment

Building on the legacy of Faith Fyles, an early pioneering botanist and scientific illustrator, the contemporary artists in the exhibition Faith Fyles: In Full Bloom extend and reinterpret her approach. Engaging with land, labour, and scientific craft, Barbara Brown, Deborah Margo, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Susan Geraldine Taylor, and Stephanie Tenasco reveal that knowledge of the environment is not static, but rather something that should be honoured, shared, and continually reimagined.

Stephanie Tenasco’s beadwork reflects the enduring presence of Algonquin people on their unceded territory, where practices such as wild berry picking continue despite the impacts of colonization. Her work reminds us that responsibility to the land is not a new concept, but one grounded in generations of knowledge and care. It points toward futures shaped by respect, reciprocity, and traditional ecological knowledge.

Deborah Margo’s plant dye experiments transform overlooked weeds into vivid fields of colour. Her work draws attention to histories of women’s knowledge-making—practices that are often undervalued, yet deeply attuned to the rhythms of plant life. Each dyed textile becomes a record of time, material, and touch, inviting us to reconsider what we deem worthy of attention.

Barbara Brown’s photographs bring visibility to the labour that sustains the land today. In Sowing the Future, she highlights women and gender-diverse farmers across the Ottawa and Outaouais regions who are engaged in regenerative, collaborative practices. Through images of seeding, weeding, and harvesting, Brown foregrounds the repetitive, essential gestures of care that underpin sustainable agriculture. Her work challenges dominant narratives of farming and imagines more inclusive, resilient futures.

Marie-Jeanne Musiol’s photographs offer yet another way of seeing. Using Kirlian photography to expose botanical specimens to an electromagnetic discharge, she produces luminous “energy imprints” that register the plants’ presence beyond visible form. Her plant impressions suggest that even the most familiar forms hold unseen energies, proposing a new kind of herbarium, one that captures not only structure, but vitality.

Susan Geraldine Taylor’s hand-coloured prints offer a quiet, attentive record of place. Created during her daily walks on the Central Experimental Farm, this portfolio focuses on Toboggan Hill in the Dominion Arboretum, where trees and shrubs were tested for hardiness. Captured in early spring, she draws attention to the farm’s significance as a shared site of research, observation, and public life.

We invite you to come spend time in this layered exhibition, where art, science, and Indigenous knowledge come together to deepen our understanding of the land we share. Take a moment to slow down, look closely, and reflect on how we can keep contributing to the collective responsibility of caring for it.

This exhibition is a unique collaboration between the Ottawa Art Gallery and Ingenium-Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation. Drawing on Ingenium’s large horticultural art and artefacts collection, the exhibition team launched a research project that has shed new light on Faith Fyles’s life and career—and uncovered previously undocumented works.

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Photos: Lindsay Ralph