Tracing Routes by Merle Harley

Artist Merle Harley was commissioned by Wonder’neath Art Society to create a soft textile sculpture highlighting the legacy of 13 years of consistent community-based arts programming by the Art Bikers program in Kjipuktuk/Halifax area. With beautiful craftwork creating rich imagery, this interactive piece, Tracing Routes, unfolds for its audience to discover pockets, pull-outs, and hidden treasures that share stories of artistic collaboration across many years and communities. Completed in the fall of 2020, the artwork is approximately 4’ x 4.5’, with 9 pockets each containing smaller works representing different projects created through quilting, weaving, sewable circuits, cyanotype, and printmaking.  Tracing Routes is at once a celebration, a history, and an invitation to participation that will serve as a catalyst for conversations around socially engaged practice, and honour grassroots collaborative making.

Merle Harley works slowly, makes things, and tries to befriend snakes. A chaos creature with too many projects and no fixed medium they create with anything readily available. Merle has done projects using knitting, weaving, comics, book projects, videos pieces and built structures. They are currently focused on pen and paper drawing a series of comics based around a snake who lives in a swamp and a squirrel who can’t leave a tree. Who knows what they will do next. Merle is a 2014 graduate of NSCAD University. They have exhibited work across Canada and beyond with an ongoing dedication to their artistic practice and is an active member of the community art scene in Lunenburg, Halifax and Toronto. Merle also has extensive experience facilitating workshops and coordinating community art programs such as Art Bikers, Wonder’neath Open Studio, Jumblies Theatre and Shadowland Theatre. Catch them on the shoreline as they zip back and forth between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Ontario.

Wonder’neath Art Society and the Art Bikers program are situated in Kjipuktuk, in unceded and unsurrendered Mi’kmaq territory. 

Art Bikers is a mobile community arts program delivered by bicycle and trailer to public green spaces in greater Kjipuktuk/Halifax by a team of trained artist facilitators. Developed by artists Terri Whetstone and Jesse Harrod on behalf of the 4Cs Foundation in 2006, the program has completed 13 consecutive seasons and has been delivered by Wonder’neath since 2017.

Much thanks to Morgan Bath for her research and development of this interactive exhibit.