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The Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery is pleased to present the work of alumna (1992) artist Kim Vose Jones.   Now living and working in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Jones’ has created a rich multimedia installation exploring the dichotomies and paradoxes of migrant life, past and present.

The project emerged in part when Jones was researching her family genealogy and discovered one of her ancestors, Anne Dodin, sailed to Canada in 1669 as one of Louis XIV’s famous filles du roi.   Inspired by natural history museum displays, Jones created four tableaux which journey through time and place, from Dodin’s Atlantic island of salt gatherers, to the 6,000 devastating  Canadian forest fires in 2023.

The tableaux are inhabited by approximately 18 stuffed animal figures, each  painstakingly constructed with vegan materials.  From a buck in stunning opalescent decay, to a fibre-optic porcupine, to ‘les filles’ as vulnerable white rabbits, boundaries between the natural and human world are blurred, and questioned.

Vose has also conceived of a participatory element—visitors are invited to write hopes, dreams, fears, or observations—to be placed as ‘messages in a bottle,’ and added to the plastic burden the escapee porcupine is carrying.