Curator
Fascinated by peatlands and wetlands, Maria Simmons explores ideas of contamination, fermentation and preservation through works that merge science, folklore and mythology. Her practice combines traditional sculpture techniques with organic materials and digital technologies, highlighting the sometimes mysterious relationships between living and non-living entities, between technology and nature, and between the real and the virtual. Drawing on natural processes, Simmons’s hybrid works underscore the elusive nature of ecosystems, especially peatlands, while questioning humanity’s place in futures compromised by extractivism.
As part of Manifestation JE/US 2025, Reciprocities, Maria Simmons presents a new installation rooted in her experience of the St. Lawrence River and wetland ecosystems. The work grew out of a spring 2024 residency at Est-Nord-Est in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, where she walked the shoreline and followed the rhythms of the tides. In the studio, she created ceramic vessels whose organic shapes fuse elements from the river’s salty waters with organisms native to peatlands. Made of ceramic, reed, kelp, tannic water, salt water and freshwater, the sinuous installation evokes the motion of the tides and the shifts in salinity caused by evaporation and condensation, when seawater rises, falls as rain and nourishes wetland ecosystems.
A spider moves stealthily among liquid-filled carnivorous plants. The tannic and saline waters at the heart of the installation are essential to countless non-human life forms. Viscous glazes, reminiscent of seaweed, are speckled with greenish glimmers inspired by will-o’-the-wisps, those erratic lights often seen hovering over marshy ground. Beneath the surface, peatlands conceal closely guarded secrets. They are the planet’s largest terrestrial carbon stores and play a vital role in regulating climate change. Their unique conditions, in particular their acidic water and lack of oxygen, naturally preserve the organic matter buried within them. Peat has even yielded human artifacts, such as the enigmatic “bog butter,” evidence of ancient food preservation practices.
Like a portal, Brackish Bodies opens a liminal space where past and present, surface and underworld, living and non-living converge, offering possible reconnections with our environment and the timeless natural phenomena that shape it.
Biography
Born in Ontario, Maria Simmons lives in Montréal. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from McMaster University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Concordia University. Her recent projects have been presented at Lydgalleriet (Bergen, Norway), Charles Street Studio (Toronto, Ontario), the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (Bowmanville, Ontario), the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (Tallinn, Estonia) and the San Sheng Art Space (Markham, Ontario). She has completed several artist residencies, including at Fogo Island Arts (Fogo, Newfoundland and Labrador), Est-Nord-Est (Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec), ED Video (Guelph, Ontario), the Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (Bergen, Norway) and Trinity Square Video (Toronto, Ontario).
Maude Johnson is a writer, curator and consultant in contemporary art. Through her writing and curatorial work, she explores performative practices, material experimentation and interconnections between nature and culture. From 2017 to 2023, she worked with MOMENTA Biennale, contributing to its strategic planning, shaping the curatorial vision and expanding the organization’s reach. After 15 remarkable years in Montréal, she left Quebec in the spring of 2023 for Squamish, British Columbia—where the mountains meet the ocean—to fulfil her passion for climbing.
