rainbow-jordan (2024-2025)

This emerging project brings together an ad hoc group of eight artists and biologists to visit and respond to an endangered and unprotected rainforest.

The Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness is one of the few remaining stands of old-growth inland temperate rainforest in British Columbia, in the unceded territory of the Sn̓ʕaýckstx (Sinixt/Arrow Lakes), Secwepémc, Syilx Okanagan and Ktunaxa Nations. The wilderness area is largely undisturbed by roads, trails, or anthropogenic development of any kind, and receives only occasional visitation by biologists and conservation groups via boat access. The Rainbow-Jordan is extremely high in biodiversity, particularly of lichens and fungi and is considered a biological safehold by scientists. Our intention is to inventory this unique, imperilled and largely unseen habitat, with a shared goal of amplifying the arguments for its conservation and producing a unique body of multidisciplinary art. Our group came together bolstered by a belief that artist/environmental scientist relationships can be symbiotic, and that transdisciplinary collaboration is key to change across fields of practice.

Our Art & Ecology Working Group is grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting stage one of this project.

Image credit: biologist Amber Peters

Image credit: biologist Amber Peters

Devil’s Club, Frisby Valley, September 2024

Frisby Valley, September 2024

Crossing Revelstoke Reservoir, September 2024