Uploaded February 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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Spring Hurlbut is a 2018 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Scott Dobson
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and Junction Box J.
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
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Transcript:
I remember I was colouring on my stoop, and my father came along, he looked down at me, and he took away my colouring book, and he said, "Spring, make your own pictures."
When I began as an artist, I was interested in the very ephemeral things in life, the things were almost intangible, I was just attracted to them like a magnet.
When my father died, my mother gave me my father's ashes.
I wanted to memorialize him in some particular way, but I knew I'd have to do it through my work.
The investigation of mortality, it seems exquisitely special to me - that question of what happens on the other side.
People from all walks of life have asked me to work with their loved ones. They allow me that permission, and what a great and remarkable privilege that is.
I think of my posthumous subjects as collaborators. They're the last specks of what once was an individual who lived on the earth and flourished on some level.
I certainly don't think of my work as macabre. I think of it more as a celebration of life.
"Airborne" has six posthumous subjects in it. It's a film, and you see me allowing each individual person to emerge out of the box.
We felt like we were in the state of grace, witnessing these different individuals really performing some exquisite movements just right in front of us. It was... unbelievable.
When people see their own relatives in one of my works, it's as is they've been in some way reincarnated for a moment in time.
Even though they're just dissolved particles of dust, they feel this incredible identifying force in looking at the movement of someone that they knew.
After using the ashes in my work, I put them back in the urn that I was given, and I return them to their owner.
In 2016, I completed Fine Line. It's a work that predominantly had six pictures in it, of my late husband Arnaud's ashes. And it combines both chaos and measurement. I feel that it was perfectly matched to Arnaud's aesthetic and his concept of the world.
I'm still working with Arnaud. And we are collaborating. I mean, how incredible is that, and how beautiful is that? And it gives me a lot of solace and joy.
Perhaps I'd like people in the end to look back on me and say, “Well, she investigated the whole idea of mortality.” I don't have all the answers, and whatever I'm searching for, it's an elusive thing.
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Spring Hurlbut is a 2018 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Scott Dobson
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and Junction Box J.
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
I remember I was colouring on my stoop, and my father came along, he looked down at me, and he took away my colouring book, and he said, "Spring, make your own pictures."
When I began as an artist, I was interested in the very ephemeral things in life, the things were almost intangible, I was just attracted to them like a magnet.
When my father died, my mother gave me my father's ashes.
I wanted to memorialize him in some particular way, but I knew I'd have to do it through my work.
The investigation of mortality, it seems exquisitely special to me - that question of what happens on the other side.
People from all walks of life have asked me to work with their loved ones. They allow me that permission, and what a great and remarkable privilege that is.
I think of my posthumous subjects as collaborators. They're the last specks of what once was an individual who lived on the earth and flourished on some level.
I certainly don't think of my work as macabre. I think of it more as a celebration of life.
"Airborne" has six posthumous subjects in it. It's a film, and you see me allowing each individual person to emerge out of the box.
We felt like we were in the state of grace, witnessing these different individuals really performing some exquisite movements just right in front of us. It was... unbelievable.
When people see their own relatives in one of my works, it's as is they've been in some way reincarnated for a moment in time.
Even though they're just dissolved particles of dust, they feel this incredible identifying force in looking at the movement of someone that they knew.
After using the ashes in my work, I put them back in the urn that I was given, and I return them to their owner.
In 2016, I completed Fine Line. It's a work that predominantly had six pictures in it, of my late husband Arnaud's ashes. And it combines both chaos and measurement. I feel that it was perfectly matched to Arnaud's aesthetic and his concept of the world.
I'm still working with Arnaud. And we are collaborating. I mean, how incredible is that, and how beautiful is that? And it gives me a lot of solace and joy.
Perhaps I'd like people in the end to look back on me and say, “Well, she investigated the whole idea of mortality.” I don't have all the answers, and whatever I'm searching for, it's an elusive thing.
