Art Installation: elegy

elegy is a poetry installation created by Canadian artist, Emily van Lidth de Jeude. https://emilyartist.ca Statement: The bones of this place are the driftwood that has always decorated the shores of my home. My father was a forester, so it was never lost on me that these bleached limbs and bodies on the beaches were once trees, cut or fallen often far inland and then floated here down the rivers to the salt water where I live and play. These bones are rounded and worn, carrying not only their own living history in their cells, but now also the beautiful scars of their journey through the sea. In life, they were habitat for countless species of birds, mammals, insects, plants, lichen and fungi. In death they are habitat again—now mainly for ocean invertebrates and seaweeds. For contemplation. In leaving this life, we continue to love and nurture it. I lost my mother in 2024—the woman who raised me to love this place for all its beauty and all its stories; the woman whose voice and