Amplifying slow moments

Music videos offer a unique opportunity for collaboration between artists working in different disciplines. Our favourite songs often prompt us to envision a world of imagery – one with which a music video is tasked to help materialize. That was the case when Canadian visual artist Sandra Brewster recently directed the music video for Anishinaabe writer and musician Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s latest single, Viscosity. On March 12, the two artists connected with Wanda Nanibush, AGO Curator, Indigenous Art,  for a virtual Art in the Spotlight discussion about their project.

For her latest full-length album, Theory of Ice, Simpson was inspired while witnessing a frozen lake melting over a six-week period. Thinking of water as a powerful metaphor for transformation, Simpson created eight songs she describes as “hopeful but honest,” with her band providing a calming backdrop for each lyrically dense and thought-provoking track. Viscosity, the album’s lead single, frames Simpson's critical reflections on the usefulness – or lack thereof – of the internet, noting its negative impact on human connection. When considering visual world-building for the song, she decided the work of Sandra Brewster was a perfect fit. 

Known for her stunning work featuring photo-based gel transfers, Canadian artist Sandra Brewster sat in the director’s chair for Viscosity. Both her videography and editing in this piece create a slow-moving, contemplative portrait of nature – set in black and white. Armed with only a smartphone, Brewster captured all principal footage in her own backyard and while on nature walks along Toronto’s Leslie Spit. As the video calmly cycles through striking imagery – slowly rolling shorelines, insect colonies and birds on barren treetops – the insight in Simpson’s lyrics is illuminated. For Brewster, slow and pensive moments experienced in isolation during the course of pandemic lockdowns were a driving inspiration behind this work. 

For their Art in the Spotlight conversation with Wanda Nanibush, Simpson and Brewster share insight on their respective creative processes while working on Viscosity. The three then reflect on the power of short, contemplative moments and how they can help us to reveal universal truths. Check out the conversation below, complete with the premiere of Viscosity, directed by Sandra Brewster, as well as three other songs  from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s new album, Theory of Ice.