Julya Hajnoczky, Calgary

My work examines human relationships with the natural world and how ecosystems are changing in our current era, by imagining and creating possible near-futures and future landscapes. Adopting and adapting the practices of scientific investigators, I collect specimens following ethical foraging practices from natural environments for use as raw material in making work, and as reference material, based on my own research and consultation with scientists and lay experts. I study and document each landscape, making notes and photographing each site. Some of the materials are used as the base for small sculptural works – diminutive cabins built onto driftwood, evoking sanctuary but also a rethinking of the size of the human footprint on the land. By playing with visual scale making the tiniest components of ecosystems larger than life, I hope to inspire a sense of wonder or fascination and encourage the viewer to consider the energy and resources that go into the constant cycle of building and decay in complex environments and ecosystems.

Julya Hajnoczky was born in Calgary, Canada, and raised by hippie parents, surrounded by unruly houseplants, bookishness and art supplies, with CBC radio playing softly, constantly, in the background. Inevitably as a result, she grew up to be an artist. A graduate of the Alberta University for the Arts, her multidisciplinary practice seeks to ask questions and inspire curiosity about the complex relationships between humans and the natural world. Julya has completed artist residencies at Point Pelee National Park (Leamington, ON), the Beaty Biodiversity Museum (Vancouver, BC), Kinship House (Vulcan County, AB), and the Empire of Dirt (Creston, BC). Her work has been exhibited internationally and has been acquired by public and private collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. In 2017, supported by grants from the Calgary Arts Development Authority and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Julya built her mobile natural history collection laboratory (a combination tiny camper and workspace, the Alfresco Science Machine), and since then has been exploring the many ecosystems of Western Canada, from Alberta’s Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, to the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve in BC and Wood Buffalo National Park, NWT. If she's not in her home studio working on something tiny, she's out in the forest working on something big.