New U of L exhibit focuses on rare insects, their survival
Most visitors marvel at the mammals. When they visit Alberta’s mountain parks they’re excited to see deer, elk and bears. Not insects. But they’re the focus of a new Hess Gallery exhibition at the University of Lethbridge.
Western Canadian artist Sarah Fuller has spent time learning about a rare insect, thought to be extinct, but recently discovered on a volcanic islet in the Tasman Sea off the coast of Australia.
She’s spent much longer in the Canadians Rockies, however.
“I really care about the environment, the insects and tiny plants that live there,” she says.
Fuller’s new exhibition, “Refugio”, juxtaposes the fearsome Lord Howe Stick species with some of the smallest creatures living in our Rockies parks.
Small things are easily overlooked, Fuller explains. Insects don’t attract tourists.
“Yet their resilience provides inspiration for the human interface with the natural world.”
Another part of that world is rats, she notes. When colonial explorers’ ships anchored at Lord Howe Island — today a two-hour flight from Sydney — some of the ship’s rats went ashore. In time, the changes they brought to the island’s ecosystem included extinction of the large “sticks.”
More recently, some have been found farther from Australia on Ball’s Pyramid, a volcanic sea stack that rises 500 metres above the ocean. While the islet is not inhabited it does support plant and insect life, Fuller learned during a recent trip to Australia.
And for the large Lord Howe Stick insects, it’s become a sort of refuge. Hiking high in the Rockies, Fuller has learned about another little-known species, the rock crawlers. For survival, they need to live in or under snow.
Climate change and melting glaciers may spell their doom, but for now gallery visitors can see both of these species in close-up video as part of her exhibition. Viewers step into a tiny theatre, reminiscent of the alpine huts provided as refuge for hikers in the Rockies or Alps.
In a series of accompanying photos, Fuller presents images from both locales in a format that traces its inspiration to Louis Deguerre, the Parisian credited as a father of photography.
The exhibition, which opened Thursday, will be open weekdays through Jan. 10 in the Hess Gallery on Level 6 in the university’s Centre for the Arts. Admission is free.
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