Jason de Haan's Two-Exhibition Survey Explores Time, Memory, and Ecology

Jason de Haan presented two concurrent exhibitions in spring 2026: "These were never tongues, mais plutôt des pieds pour crapahuter" at Foreman Art Gallery in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and "In the Garden of the Dentist" at Clint Roenisch Gallery in Toronto, the latter in collaboration with Miruna Drăgan. The shows featured works spanning years, including the ongoing humidifier series "Free and Easy Wanderer" (2014–ongoing), which places fossilized shells and turtle fragments atop ultrasonic humidifiers, reintroducing ancient matter to cycles of moisture. At Foreman, de Haan also exhibited embroidered denim jackets—a copy of a jacket made by his father in art school—and "Groper" (2024–ongoing), small meteorite-carved fingers pressing against the wall. At Clint Roenisch, the exhibition centered on the folklore of a mythical dentist on Paros who planted extracted teeth in a garden. Works included Drăgan's "Torper" series (made with Corbin Union and Warren McLachlan), de Haan's "Charm, Choir, Council, Chorus" (2021) entombing hummingbirds in bottles and concrete, and the mirror-faced wooden statues "Biblionauts" (2023). Drăgan's film "Hummingbird Guided Meditation" (2021), with a soundtrack by Maggie Tiesenhausen, was shown in a darkened alcove. The exhibitions explored inheritance, recurrence, and the endurance of memory through fossils, heirlooms, and stories.