He Named Her Amber
| A project by Iris Haeussler | [ Haeussler Home ] |
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He Named Her Amber
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The visitor's view ...
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The archeologist's view ...
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The protagonist's view ...
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The artist's view ...
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The curator's view ...
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In June 2007 The Grange received a bequest from Boston, Massachusetts, containing diaries of one Henry Whyte, who had served as a butler in The Grange for almost 40 years from 1818 to 1857. In the 1828 volume, he first remarked on Mary O'Shea, a seventeen year old Irish woman, recently arrived, who was hired as third maid. [...] |
In spring of 2007, Anthropological Services Ontario (ASO) was retained to identify and investigate those sites that had not been obliterated by recent construction. Careful exposure of spaces beneath floorboards, behind wall mouldings and under the brick floor indeed turned up artifacts. [...] |
According to our best reconstruction, "Amber" was born in 1811 as Mary O'Shea, eldest child of Irish tenant farmers near Kilkenny, Ireland. She was catholic, literate - likely educated in a "hedgeschool" of the time - and she arrived in Toronto in 1828, seeking domestic employment. [...] |
"He named her Amber" spans the space between fiction and nonfiction. Where there is an initial construct of reality, it must be followed by revealing the fictitious aspects of the project. The passage between these two realms, between the historic narrative and the context of a contemporary artwork is an important part of the work. Before revealing it, the work is not complete. [...] |
The key question is not whether her excavation is true or false, rooted in verifiable historical fact or based on fabricated narratives, but is rather to assess the intensity of a resonant art experience. [...] |
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Curated by David Moos  at the Art Gallery of Ontario |
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