Nadia Lichtig, Josèfa Ntjam, Anne Riley and Jol Thoms: Drift: Art and Dark Matter

Artists speculate at the limits of dark matter’s known unknowns at Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

Online exhibition
The online exhibition has launched! In Drift: Art and Dark Matter, Nadia Lichtig, Josèfa Ntjam, Anne Riley and Jol Thoms go the distance and experiment with the contours of our unknown universe. The artists encountered physicists, chemists and engineers contributing to the search for dark matter at SNOLAB’s facility in Sudbury, two kilometres below the surface of the Earth.

The digital extension of Drift: Art and Dark Matter invites you to encounter the meeting of theories and voices that informs this exciting transdisciplinary residency and exhibition. Learn more about the project through behind-the-scenes videos, interviews and interactive activities. Find it online at Digital AGNES. 

In the galleries
Through openness to transdisciplinary exchange with physics and its labs, the artists have created artworks in sculpture, installation, print, textile and video that reflect on the how and why of physics and art as interrelating practices of knowledge. The project begins from a consideration of the forms and energies that connect physics to art, labour, landscapes, cultures and histories. Curated by Sunny Kerr, Curator of Contemporary Art.

Connect with the rich slate of related online public programs this winter.

Drift: Art and Dark Matter is a residency and exhibition project generated by Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute and SNOLAB. 

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, City of Kingston Arts Fund through the Kingston Arts Council and the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund at Queen’s University.

Jol Thoms: Agnes 2021 Stonecroft Foundation artist-in-residence
Jol Thoms’s critical practice addresses our troubled relationships with nature, technology and the cosmos by signalling beyond the purely measurable and quantifiable, and by thinking, feeling and sensing with more-than-human worlds. Residencies are central to Agnes’s contemporary art program and afford us the opportunity to work closely with artists to nurture new ways of working, support the creation of new artworks, and bring artistic processes into our own institutional practice. 

Situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory, Agnes Etherington Art Centre is a curatorially-driven and research—intensive professional art centre that proudly serves a dual mandate as a leading, internationally recognized public art gallery and as an active pedagogical resource at Queen’s University. By commissioning, researching, collecting and preserving works of art, and through exhibiting and interpreting visual culture through an intersectional lens, Agnes creates opportunities for participation and exchange across communities, cultures, and geographies.

The Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute is the Canadian hub for astroparticle physics research, uniting researchers, theorists, and technical experts within one organization. Located at and led by Queen’s University, the McDonald Institute is proud to have thirteen partner universities and research institutes across the country, all of which are key players in Canada’s past and future innovation in astroparticle physics.

SNOLAB is Canada’s deep underground research laboratory, located in Vale’s Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario Canada. It provides an ideal low background environment for the study of extremely rare physical interactions. SNOLAB’s science program focuses on astroparticle physics, specifically neutrino and dark matter studies, though its unique location is also well-suited to biology and geology experiments. SNOLAB facilitates world-class research, trains highly qualified personnel, and inspires the next generation of scientists.