Meet me at the floe edge
COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada
September 23 - November 11, 2023
Meet me at the floe edge invites viewers to move towards a Western Arctic perspective. Centering her ongoing engagement with the found and reused, Gruben’s latest body of sculptures includes lightly shimmering masks comprised of deconstructed polar bear rugs suspended from mitt strings made by a community elder; an oversized clear vinyl ookpik stuffed with plastic toys unearthed from the landfill; a well-used girl’s parka cover folded and stitched into abstraction; an aged foam bear head with a fibre optic mohawk. The sculptures presented in Meet me at the floe edge deftly and playfully embrace mass-produced materials while remaining acutely aware of the increasingly unstable relationship between human consumption and organic life.