A unique story art installation has set up shop in Elliot Lake’s Art Gallery at the Lester B. Pearson Civic Centre.
Created by Dr. Kayt Lackie, with the help of a team writers, artists and crafters, the Ephemera Storytelling Box opened up for a month-long exhibit that tells the story of fictional characters surrounded by real and fictional experiences living in the community.
“The writing team wrote the entire story,” Lackie said. “it’s a love story, it worked with this kind of nostalgic (theme). It’s the equivalent of a novella, but we based it in Elliot Lake. Over the course of 60 years we see what happens to them.”
It was put together by the VESSEL (Virtual experience and superimposed story world in Ellliot Lake) Transmedia Storytelling Lab which Lackie is the director working out of an office at the civic centre.
“I wanted to see some storytelling about Elliot Lake,” Lackie said of her connection to the community where her father was a teacher for 30 years and her mother works for the city.
The exhibit is a love story set in Elliot Lake (and) told in the form of a memory book. The focus is on the relationship that builds between Jude Nesbitt who moves to the community to be a miner in 1957 with his brother Johnny and friend Seamus and Genevieve Lefevre relocates to Elliot Lake with her husband Marcell, an engineer.
“Through happenstance, Jude and Genevieve meet and kindle a charged friendship,” an information pamphlet on the installation states. “Over the course of 20 years their evolving relationship will be moulded and tested by Elliot Lake’s boom and bust cycle. Ultimately their love story will reflect the resilience of the land and community as well as Elliot Lake’s changing identity.”
Crafting the story with Lackie was her brother RJ Lackie on the editorial team who handed it off to a team of eight writers. The writers prepared the overall story Containing 20,000 to 30,000 words contained in letters and journals between the couple and the other characters in the story.
Other members of the art team put together a wide range of items, such as a re-creation of a theatre ticket from the old Lake Theatre and a newspaper clipping with a new story attached to reflect the character’s lives and the time in the town’s history
“We printed this ad and we aged all the pieces. The article is new but this is written by one of our characters on events that took place,” Lackie said of the items contained in a wood box created by local actor and craftsman Murray Finn. His wife Linda Finn, a well-known artist in the community, was part of the art team authenticating the re-creation.
Coincidentally, Lackie helped set up the Art Gallery at its current location, during one of her stops in Elliot Lake while she was getting her education and doctorate.
Among the writers is Elliot Lake mayor Dan Marchisella who penned the character Jude in the storyline. Fran Perkins, a well-known retired teacher and community actor and artist penned the story related to neighbor Constance. Poet Kathleen Burke wrote the story surrounding the other main character Genevieve.
It took about six months to put the installation together, according to Lackie.
Lackie said the storytelling box is available for the public to come into the gallery to read and look over. Archival gloves are in place for anyone handling the contents. With the amount of information, she is suggesting people to drop by the gallery and “read a little bit,” at a time.
She is hoping other galleries and libraries will be interested in borrowing the exhibit to show.