two seven two. gallery, Toronto
Group Exhibition, organized by Scott Rogers
with Richard Frater, Sukaina Kubba, Kananginak Pootoogook, Scott Rogers and Olivia Whetung
12 July 2025 - 16 August 2025
Richard Frater’s Common Birds (2018) presents a slide show of photographs produced by three collaborators in different geographic locations. Over the course of one weekend Frater shot images of the Eurasian Goshawk in Berlin, Scott Rogers the Rufous Hornero in Buenos Aires and wildlife photographer Georgina Steytler the Galah in Melbourne/Naarm. Following an editing exchange, Frater received all the files and compiled them—reflecting engagements with what constitutes everyday encounters across hemispheres and continents. Frater’s work is partitioned off by a site-specific bird hide created by Scott Rogers inspired by infrastructures in Tifft Nature Preserve (Buffalo, NY).
Exploring histories of textiles as sites of cultural exchange, appropriation and transformation, Sukaina Kubba draws attention to the formal elements of their design. Using a 3D filament pen, the artist reproduces characters from Persain rugs. Here anthropomorphized pomegranates, larger than life peonies and awkwardly contorted birds are taken out of woven patterns and placed on the gallery walls. These motifs are reappropriated from Scottish carpet manufactures, Stoddard-Templeton (1871–2006) who sent their designers to copy Persian rugs.
Titled Birds find freedom in the Arctic, they are elated when they arrive. These King Eider ducks are elated (1998) Kananginak Pootoogook’s pencil and ink drawing depicts a pair of birds animated by their arrival in the North. Celebrated for his depiction of arctic wildlife, especially birds, this poetic title introduces an emotional resonance to representations of avian wildlife in contrast to pure documentation.
Echoing throughout the exhibition, Scott Rogers’ most recent sound work Nightjars (2025) is composed from the calls of 64 of the world’s nocturnal nightjar species. This work connects to his larger series of soundworks which offer auditory portraits of birds that are typically unseen. In contrast to many daytime species, nightjars have rhythmic calls that are sometimes evocative of electronic music. Their unusual vocalizations have long resonated with bird enthusiasts. In Unwatch (03) (2025) a nocturnal bird appears. This work connects to a series of paintings that copy owl logos used by surveillance organizations. Situated on a dark background, Rogers reinscribes the images back into a nighttime environment.
Expanding her practice of beadwork from three to two dimensions, Olivia Whetung’s digital beading prints, Unplanned Offerings, describe experiences of mutual benefit between species. Here a chipmunk, goldfinch and bumblebee are depicted alongside aster, goldenrod, echinacea, chives and potatoes cultivated by the artist in her garden. These works connect to Whetung’s broader concerns of interdependency and food sovereignty across human and non-human worlds.
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