Victoria Piersig

email: vicki@victoriapiersig.com
website: victoriapiersig.com

Freeing the Enterprise - I am aboard a tugboat tasked with freeing a ship from a vast windrow of ice in Goderich Harbour Lake Huron.

The Atlantic Beach shelters from a powerful November storm at the Government Dock at Port Hawkesbury

I am aboard a ship loading gypsum at the Little Narrows Gypsum Mine -now closed. The crew is spinning the ship in heavy wind to complete a load and depart before an early December blizzard hits.

Jocelyn, an aspiring seafarer, is taking a break from marine firefighting drills at the NSCC Nautical Institute at Port Hawkesbury

Killing time. Cars park momentarily at the dusty littered parking lot in Port Hawkesbury. A steady stream of mostly solitary drivers have a look, check to see if there is anyone here they know, and then drive off to parts unknown. More than one tells me that they are just "killing time".

The AIM recycling plant in Saint John recycles metals from the Eastern Seaboard and ships to South America and beyond. An important part of the industrial chain - the company has located here due to the accessibility of rail and truck to ships. Gentrification of our waterfronts is endangering ports worldwide and is a concern as shipping is the most sustainable way to move heavy goods.

Artist Statement

For most of us, Covid19 has changed how we look at our world and the goods that sustain us.
For me, how we get things and the structures that make it possible - is a 10-year fascination.

My long term project, Trading Places is an evolving exploration of the travel of essential bulk commodities through the Great Lakes, and St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic and markets beyond.

As you journey through these images, consider the enormous investment in labour, and infrastructure, the proud, skilled seafarers who bring you these goods,
our watery highways, and the impact urban planning and gentrification of our shorelines have upon the movement of goods to market.

Biography

Victoria was surrounded by art and handmade objects from an early age. Her father, a foreman in a metal fabrication company, was a great influence in her early years and she has always had a profound interest in construction and industry. Family vacations inevitably included tours of manufacturing plants, pulp mills, metal fabricators and artisan studios.

Victoria is a fine art photographer who has earned access to ships, train lines, factories, mines, and other spaces that feed into our collective prosperity. With over 20 exhibitions, Victoria has established herself as a preeminent visual storyteller and documenter of modern industry.