The Free Press: Pulling focus Through, and through a green, green lens

If there’s a seed from which Sarah Ciurysek’s artistic practice sprouted, it’s buried deep in the dirt, under a willowy canopy, on her family’s grain farm near Peace River, Alta.

That would explain why the photographer’s lens is typically trained at the roots instead of angled toward the treetops.

By nature and through nurture, Ciurysek’s practice is terrestrially bound.

“I have more of a familiarity or comfort with being outside, just lying down on the ground. I always had a desire to put my hands in the dirt or just lie down in the grass,” says Ciurysek, an associate professor in the School of Art at the University of Manitoba.

Compelled to touch grass — to silence urban and technological distraction to reconnect with the natural world — Ciurysek often heads to the forest, an environment that served as an inspiration for her solo exhibit Through, and through, on view at the Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts (100 Arthur St.) until Nov. 15.

At Platform on Friday at 6 p.m., Ciurysek will be joined in conversation by hannah_g, a local writer and the curator of the Galerie Buhler Gallery, to discuss the exhibition as part of Platform’s active research lecture series. The event is free to the public.

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School of Art