Patricia Robin Wisniewski

Gentrification There is a behaviour within some species of birds called brood parasitism, in which a bird will lay her eggs in another species' nest and allow them to raise her young. This results in the bird hatching, kicking the other birds from the nest, and benefitting from the extra resources. When a community is being gentrified, the first signs are often the opening of high-end grocery stores, trendy coffee shops, and new skyscrapers. These developments cause rent and cost of living to increase, which drives out small businesses and with it, the culture of the area.

Obsolescence This year, Marineland threatened to euthanize its 30 beluga whales if the Canadian government did not agree to approve their transfer to the U.S., stating they no longer had the ability to care for them. The paint on their pools is peeling, the facilities are outdated, and they have no funding for staff to take care of the animals. This piece tackles the experience of the whales in this condition, stuck in close quarters in a home that is falling apart and unable to do anything about it. It represents the feeling of having to live in a home that is no longer meeting your needs, despite the challenges that comes with.

Peril "Peril" concerns itself with a particular dread of danger from those who have managed to get close to you. The fox represents different stages of stalking, surveillance, life invasion, and intimidation. Foxes are able to smell rabbits underneath the earth and pounce into the ground to dig and access their burrows. Sometimes foxes even dig into rabbit burrows to make them larger and welcome themselves in, taking over their refuge. This work traces this movement: from surveillance, to intrusion, to total occupation.

Disposession In the GTA's rental landscape, the relationship between tenant and landlord is rarely equal. Many who rent know the particular feeling of being surveilled in a place that is supposed to be your own. Honey badgers are an extremely territorial animal and are known for their aggressiveness no matter the size of their opponent. I have chosen to represent the ferocious landlord as a brass door knocker, fixed to the entrance of a property it guards. On the knocker hangs a cluster of keys, each one a different tenant, a different life held loosely in someone else’s grip. Above the badger, a peephole on the door: a reminder that you are being watched.

Transience Across Tanzania and Kenya, the great wildebeest migration plays out: an unending cycle driven by necessity. In their search for grazing land and water, wildebeest face relentless predation, yet survivors persist, procreate, and carry the cycle forward. Their resilience mirrors the determination required to survive a life of constant roaming: moving away from the city for cheaper rent, or toward it for better-paying work. The ever-present lion becomes a symbol of economic pressure, the systemic force that uproots lives not through choice, but through the necessity of financial survival.

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