An exhibition of work by Natalie Hunter and Heidi McKenzie
What legacies of labour do we inherit? From pride, activism, and working-class values to injuries, diseases and pollution, the work of Natalie Hunter and Heidi McKenzie in What We Inherit reveals how the legacies of family members’ occupations shape us. Using media that evoke basic elements, the artists ask, how do years of labour performed by our family members occupy every breath, etch onto the skin, leave residues in the body?
Images of structures once populated by workers cast through film celebrate Hunter’s family legacy at Slater Steel and Stelco while mourning the effects of deindustrialization. In earthenware McKenzie explores the impact of work in Trinidad’s oil refinery on her father’s health. Using ceramic tile and video projection McKenzie explores bodily traces of her ancestors who worked their way to Canada from Belfast and India by way of the Caribbean.
Hunter and McKenzie also represent the labour legacy of their maternal lineage in farming, weaving, housework and reproduction using porcelain, ceramic, and photography. Time has moved on, yet what of this work does our heart and body remember?
Natalie Hunter was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She is the recipient of many Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grants, and Ontario Arts Council Visual Artists Creation Project Grants. She has shown her work in public art galleries and artist-run-centres across Canada, including: Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Smokestack Gallery, Hamilton Supercrawl, Hamilton Winterfest, University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Thames Art Gallery, Mississauga Living Arts Centre, Art Gallery of Windsor, Centre 3 for Artistic and Social Practice, Factory Media Centre, Hamilton Artists Inc., Latcham Art Centre, Museum London, Propeller Art Gallery, John B. Aird Gallery, Gallery TPW, University of Manitoba School of Arts Gallery, The Reach Gallery Museum, and Capture Photography Festival, among others. Her work has been featured in Hamilton Arts and Letters, Femme Art Review, The Gathered Gallery, Other Peoples Pixels Blog, Canadian Journal of Culture Studies, and BlackFlash Magazine. She holds an MFA from the University of Waterloo where she is a sessional instructor, and received an Excellence in Online Teaching Award (2017). She lives and works in her home city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Heidi McKenzie is a ceramic and installation artist based in Toronto, Canada. Heidi completed her MFA at OCADU in 2014. Heidi is informed by her mixed-race Indo-Trinidadian/Irish-American heritage. Heidi uses ceramics, photography, digital media, and archive to forefront themes of ancestry, race, migration and colonization, as well as body and healing. Heidi has exhibited internationally in Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, Oceana and North America. The recipient of numerous grants, Heidi has created in Ireland, Denmark, Hungary, Australia, China and Indonesia. Her work has been collected by the ROM, Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, and Surrey Art Museum.
Heidi curated ‘Decolonizing Clay’ at the Australian Ceramics Triennale, 2019, and participated in the World Indian Diaspora Congress in Trinidad, 2020, Heidi was inducted into the International Academy of Ceramics in 2022. Heidi serves as a volunteer board member with NCECA, the National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts.
Heidi’s solo exhibition at the Gardiner Museum, Reclaimed: Indo-Caribbean HerStories (spring 2023) explores the little-known migrant and labour histories of Indo-Caribbean indentureship through a feminist lens. Heidi presented Girmitya HerStories at the 2024 Indian International Ceramics Triennale in Delhi – bringing the Indo-Caribbean diaspora “home.”
Opening Reception and Artist Walkthrough with Natalie Hunter and Heidi McKenzie, Saturday, February 15, 1 – 3 pm
Women’s Work: Weaving Our Stories Together Second Saturday for families with Heidi McKenzie, Saturday, March 8, 1 – 4 pm
Steelworker Legacies: Objects and Stories
Labour in the Body with Heidi McKenzie and Alex Morgan, Saturday, April 5, 10 – 11:30 am & 1 –2:30 pm
View the interpretive Guide for All Ages created to accompany this exhibition (coming soon).
Download the What We Inherit exhibition poster (coming soon).
WAHC wishes to acknowledge the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Hamilton, the Province of Ontario, CUPE National, the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada’s Building Trades Unions, OPSEU/SEFPO and Teamsters Local Union 879 for their support of our exhibitions and ancillary programs.
For more information, please contact Sylvia Nickerson, Programming and Exhibitions Specialist, at (905) 522-3003 ex. 29 or sylvia@wahc-museum.ca
