A solo exhibition by photographer and filmmaker, Katherine Knight.

BOAT began with the gift of a model boat in 2009 during a visit to coastal Newfoundland. In 2016 Katherine Knight began photographing model boats at sea and by 2018 this became a larger research project exploring the significance of modelmaking in Atlantic Canada. This exhibition shares the project’s photographs, artifacts and stories of maritime model boats. A beloved dory, a remembered ferry, a schnoor stranded on ice: using the camera’s capacity to create and capture the uncanny, these photographs of models at sea, on shore, and on display bridge fact and fiction to reanimate the experiences, imaginings, and remembrances of both creators and those that love their craft. BOAT also includes black-and-white photographs created early in her career, connecting, like the models themselves, across time.

Crafted by fishermen in their leisure time or purposefully fabricated to plan and commemorate ships—old, new, and remembered- models are the material residue of historical patterns of leisure and labour. With demographic shifts from rural to urban and economic shifts in fishing and shipbuilding, models have faded from view and the crafts associated with their making are being lost. While distinctive public and private collections exist worldwide, the will to expand them appears diminished. Yet model vessels remain resilient, continuing to connect stories and geographies, past and present.

BOAT was created on beaches, harbours, and sites throughout Mi’kma’ki: beautiful land on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. BOAT was supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.