A river system near the gallery was explored using a remote-controlled underwater robot and camera. A collaborative project with Tokyo-based artist Hiroaki Morita that presented the bridge as a metaphor for collaboration itself and a platform to interrogate our respective social norms. The Kamejima bridge has been in use for hundreds of years, generating the possibility of centuries of objects being thrown from it. Taking the metaphor at face value, we endeavoured to make literal that which has been bridged, bringing submerged things to the surface for examination. The underwater camera roams the riverbed searching for objects we agreed were of historic, cultural or aesthetic interest. These objects were physically retrieved by a professional diver and transported to the gallery. Documentation of the collaborative salvage operation was projected adjacent to the objects, contextualizing them and shifting them from a primarily sculptural reading into objects whose meaning stems more from their involvement in a social activity. The project necessitated a great deal of dialogue, cooperation, coordination, negotiation; in a sense the "actual" subjects of the show.

Project generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council.