Carried by rivers, held by lands

Remai Modern’s ambitious multi-year project Carried by rivers, held by lands continues through the remainder of 2026 with a group exhibition, installation and gathering that showcase a set of artist projects developed during exchanges, gatherings, and site-responsive processes over the last three years. 

Exhibition: July 31–December 6, 2026
Featuring Cooking Sections, Kultivator, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Katarina Spik Skum, Althea Thauberger, Marianne Nicolson with Dzawada̱ʼenux̱w First Nation community members, and Laakkuluk Wiliamson and Jamie Griffiths, the works in the project’s eponymous exhibition attend to the flows that sustain and unsettle life—ecological, cultural, and economic. 

Cooking Sections’ CLIMAVORE project, introduced through the work, Bivalve Murals, signals an ongoing collaboration with the museum around adaptive food systems. Exchanges between Kultivator and Marianne Nicolson with the  Dzawada̱ʼenux̱w First Nation centre the rematriation of knowledge connected to stinging nettle and oolichan fishing. Katarina Pirak Sikku’s works trace Sámi histories of displacement along dammed rivers. 

The exhibition also brings forward projects first presented through earlier phases of Carried by rivers, held by lands. Works by Althea Thauberger and Laakkuluk Williamson and Jamie Griffiths, return in new relation to the broader constellation of artworks gathered here, extending conversations that have unfolded across multiple years, locations, and forms of exchange. Joi T. Arcand’s LED installation pêh-pêyak ômisi isi ê-atihtêki takwahiminâna remains on view on Level Three of the museum as another extension of the project.

Together, these works foreground practices grounded in reciprocity, continuity, and resistance, proposing ways of living otherwise within and against the conditions of colonial capitalism and climate crisis. 

Installation: August 28–December 4, 2026
On August 28, the project continues with the installation Storm Song by Tanya Lukin Linklater. The work is a site-responsive installation of sound, textiles, and places of rest. Located in the Gallery Lounge on Level 3 of Remai Modern, overlooking kisiskâciwani-sîpiy—the South Saskatchewan River—the work extends Lukin Linklater’s ongoing consideration of weather, temporality, and embodied knowledges. 

At the centre of the installation is a narrative audio work presented at the same time each day. Emerging from ongoing conversations and relationships with Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Joely BigEagle-Kequahtooway, and Yvonne Tiger, the work centres Indigenous women’s knowledge and lived experiences of weather, land, and memory across the Great Plains. At other times, an ambient audio composition inhabits the space, drawing on environmental sound and the temporal rhythms of the prairie landscape. Textile works, wooden benches, and places of rest form a second constellation within the installation. The objects draw on materials and forms that recur throughout Lukin Linklater’s practice—including all-weather canvas, wool blankets, kohkom scarves, and forms drawn from the prairie ecosystem.

Gathering: September 11 and 12, 2026
Carried by rivers, held by lands culminates on September 11 and 12 with an artist and public gathering at Remai Modern. 

Through presentations, conversations, and collective reflection, participating artists and collaborators will share insights from work developed across diverse landscapes and communities, bringing the project's many currents into conversation and considering what they might carry forward.  

Day I
On Friday, Cooking Sections—made up of London-based artists Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe—hosts a public forum that asks how food can contribute to building new futures today. Developed with partners from Treaty 6 Territory, the gathering responds to increasingly severed relationships between people, soil, and food systems. Drawing on the shared etymology of "procurement" and "curating"—both rooted in "taking care"—participants will consider how institutions such as museums, schools, universities, and hospitals might support ecological restoration, land access, and community-led food futures through the choices they make about what they procure and serve. 

Day II
On Saturday, the public is invited to listen to participating artists as they gather with collaborators and community members whose contributions have shaped their work throughout Carried by rivers, held by lands. The program reconvenes many of the relationships that have sustained the initiative, bringing stories, processes, and conversations that have unfolded beyond the museum into dialogue with one another. Participants will reflect on the questions, concerns, and connections that have emerged through the project, considering the capacity of artistic practice to build solidarities, circulate knowledge, and contribute to broader processes of social and ecological change. 

Registration is now open, and the program schedule will be announced soon. Visit carriedbyrivers.ca for more information. 

Carried by rivers, held by lands is curated by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, Co-Executive Director and CEO, and Tarah Hogue, Adjunct Curator (Indigenous Art), Remai Modern, Saskatoon; and Maria Lind, Director, Kin Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiruna. 

Carried by rivers, held by lands is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Embassy of Sweden.