grapes and trailers

grapes and trailers

Grapes and Trailers focuses on the role of migrant workers who come to Canada year after year, to live and work here temporarily under continually trying circumstances.

The work consists of a large projection screen woven from 610 meters of decommissioned fire hose, donated to Annette by the Diefenbunker Museum. When installed vertically, the screen measures 5 meters high by 4 meters wide, with an aspect ratio of 19:6. Additionally 6 meters of fire hose runs beneath the screen. Due to the meeting of two dimensions and three dimensions, there is an interplay between the screen’s textured surface and projected imagery. The screen is flexible, allowing it to be adapted to different configurations depending on where it is located when publicly presented.

The projected imagery consists of a series of photographic stills and short videos taken during multiple visits to two vineyards: Stanners Vineyard, in Prince Edward County (where we assisted in harvesting the grapes in 2019), as well as from KIN Vineyard, just outside Ottawa, in Carp.

The room is also filled by the recording of a wind machine used at night to protect grapevines from cold temperatures. Beneath the whirring mechanical sounds, a chorus of responding wildlife can be heard.

In late 2021, as part of Free Food: Approaches to Food Sovereignty, Security, and Justice at Gallery 101 (Ottawa), video imagery of vineyards and grape harvesting was projected on the screen’s basket weave structure, with photographs of migrant workers trailers projected on a back-lit interior window. In both interventions, human labour was evident, however human presence was invisible – not unlike our unacknowledged dependence on migrant workers working seasonally as food workers in Ontario.