Image: Jol Thoms, n-Land: the holographic (principle), 2021, 4k video, gantry crane, 5.1 sound, steel slotted angle sculptures with Fresnel lenses, mirror ball motors, Robinson-Huron Treaty: Library and Archives Canada, RG10, Volume: 1844/IT148, Microfilm reel: T-9938, acid burned rocks from Sudbury landscape, Sudbury basin “shatter cone” rock-sculpture from Sudbury’s Science North, Sloan Digital Sky Survey “plug plate” from the collection of Stéphane Courteau, isomorph c-prints, sculptures of brass and rock sourced from Sudbury’s Dynamic Earth, work desk with computer showing group portrait with SNO+ detector video, Robinson-Huron Treaty annuities case court documents, physics essay by Ningqiang Song & Aaron Vincent, Sudbury Bedrock Compilation map from Canada's geological survey, coloured floor tapes, neutrino particles and shadows
Jol Thoms borrows the imagery, materials and strategies of physics, composing them in an art context to probe the ecological ethics of our time. For example, borrowing a strategy from theoretical physicists, he plays with higher dimensions throughout his installation, made explicit in his metal “hypercube” sculptures titled The Bulk: Frameworks. The provocative flattening and layering of complex dimensional objects continues in his Isomorphis prints, in which he layers flattened 3D scans of SNOLAB experiments to expose gaps and hidden strata within scientific classification methodologies. Thoms’s installation suggests a multi-dimensional view of the SNOLAB site which he refers to as “holographic,” reading context and agency through vast cosmic and geological time scales. The piece reflects on interconnected components of land: the comet that hit the location 1.85 billion years ago, and the resulting emergence of copper and nickel deposits within its rock; how the land is both a major mining site and the object of debated government treaties with Indigenous peoples; and how the rock itself isolates SNOLAB from the interference of surface radiation so that experiments can search for rare cosmic particles.
Image: Jol Thoms, n-Land: the holographic (principle), 2021, 4k video, gantry crane, 5.1 sound, steel slotted angle sculptures with Fresnel lenses, mirror ball motors, Robinson-Huron Treaty: Library and Archives Canada, RG10, Volume: 1844/IT148, Microfilm reel: T-9938, acid burned rocks from Sudbury landscape, Sudbury basin “shatter cone” rock-sculpture from Sudbury’s Science North, Sloan Digital Sky Survey “plug plate” from the collection of Stéphane Courteau, isomorph c-prints, sculptures of brass and rock sourced from Sudbury’s Dynamic Earth, work desk with computer showing group portrait with SNO+ detector video, Robinson-Huron Treaty annuities case court documents, physics essay by Ningqiang Song & Aaron Vincent, Sudbury Bedrock Compilation map from Canada's geological survey, coloured floor tapes, neutrino particles and shadows