Title: Relic of Memory 2

Artist: Anne O'Callaghan Exhibition year: 1999

Mining the repositories of memory, Anne O'Callaghan reconstructs the natural and human histories issuing from this site. In Relic of Memory, domestic and architectural structures fabricated from contemporary industrial materials are introduced into the environment. An eight-foot long steel table squarely placed in a moss-laden clearing bears the inscription "Huron Hatherly Ruttan," identifying the generations of people who have inhabited this territory. Alternately, the poetic insertions on the reverse trace the organic constituents of the earth: "Petrified Wood.Dead Lava.. Cooling Star..Incarcerated Ghosts" extending the historical continuum. (See 1998). â€¦a steel vitrine is positioned at the apex of a sequence of stone markets. Referencing museological systems of categorizations. Oâ€™Callaghan recontextualizes and codifies the natural artifacts of the immediate locale: rock, moss, lichen. Reminiscent of cairns, the piled stones at its base evoke historical antecedents: the demarcation of burial sites, or signposts on a journey. However, their apparent randomness implies a more natural occurrence. Remnants of a one hundred year old wall, these stones are employed as a tectonic vocabulary through which natural and human boundaries are redrawn. Meandering across the coarse surface of the shield, the stones, in fact emulate the gravitational flow of water, inverting the re-ordering of nature within cultural categories. Time is not just a mental concept or a mathematical abstraction in the desert. The rocks in the distance are ageless; they have been deposited in layers over hundreds of thousands of years. Time takes on a physical presence.
Nancy Holt - Carolyn Bell Farrell, "Axis of Time," The Tree Museum, (The Tree Museum, 2000)

Anne O'Callaghan's work extends from photo-based work to site -specific sculpture. Selected site-specific installations include, The Tree Museum (1998-99); The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, Ontario (Public Art Project 2001-2003); An Artist Garden, Visual Arts, York Quay Centre, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Ontario. (2003 to present); Fifthtown. Prince Edward County, Ontario, and Kiwi Gardens, Perth, Ontario. (2008). Selected exhibitions include: Redhead Gallery, Toronto (2004, 2006); The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (2002, 2004, 2007); Oeno Gallery (2005, 2007); Visual Arts York Quay Gallery at Harbourfront Centre Toronto (2002, 2007). As well as a practicing artist O'Callaghan has an active curatorial practice. She is the co-curator and a founding member of The Tree Museum, Gravenhurst, Ontario, and a founding member of the intersperse curatorial collective. Born in Ireland, O'Callaghan lives and works in Toronto, Ontario and is represented by Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, Ontario.