My ancestors farmed the rich land along the St. Lawrence River on the West Front for six generations. After the St. Lawrence Seaway Project was approved in 1954, the farm was expropriated by Ontario Hydro to build the Moses-Saunders Power Dam, killing the 170-year-old family farm and prompting my grandfather to declare “expropriation is the foulest word in the English language!”

I grew up aware of the incident, but unaware of the impact such devastation would have had on my relatives and the thousands of other land custodians in the villages and hamlets that populated the banks of the St. Lawrence River lost to the inundation. Traces of these lives are eerily still visible underwater.

This work looks at what we’ve inherited, not just personalities and possessions but what was lost. The bits and pieces in this show are informed by family lore, photos, and possibly the wisdom we inherited from those that went before us.

Erin Robertson is a sculptor and painter whose studio practice includes oils, clay, paper, resin, and bronze. Driven by curiosity for the possible relationships between medium and meaning, Erin’s work references mythology, folk traditions, popular culture and art histories. Erin was born in Cornwall and grew up on three continents, spending her formative years in rural Ontario and East Africa.