By: Clara Xu, SFU Student
The fourth floor of SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts is currently home to a small school of paper fish, swimming in a glass cabinet at the intersection of two hallways. These fish are part of Quantum Fish School, an art exhibition created by researcher-artist and SFU Indigenous studies professor, Dr. Zoe Todd. As the founder of the Institute for Freshwater Fish Futures, Todd studies the relationships between “Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish futures and freshwater fish well-being in Canada,” using Indigenous knowledge, science, and art to “re-centre freshwater fish in the collective imagination and governance of our communities across the country, with an explicit focus on honouring Indigenous legal-ethical relations.”
Quantum Fish School explores the relationship between fish and their ability to survive throughout times of high indeterminacy, times when the future is uncertain and subjected to numerous possibilities. The exhibition features various foam and paper cut-outs of illustrated freshwater fish found in Canada, including the brook stickleback, the northern pike, and the bull trout. On the back walls are splotches of blue, layered on one another, and some yellow-orange lines glowing in the background. Between the hanging fish cut-outs and the wallpaper is a plastic sheet covered in formulae. Upon further research, these are formulae used in quantum mechanics, a brand of mechanics that describes physics theories at atomic and subatomic levels. It cannot predict atomic results with certainty, but gives probabilities of what might happen — what Todd refers to as indeterminacy.
It was a quiet afternoon in the building when I went to see the exhibition, given that it was a couple days away from Christmas. Quantum Fish School felt like a pillar of calm amongst the concrete walls of the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. The wallpaper gave the exhibition a feel that is whimsical, oceanic, fluorescent, and futuristic all at the same time. I felt a sense of peace when observing the fish, but the more I observed, the more questions I had. My first few questions involved the formulae written on the plastic sheet. What were they about? What was the relationship of these formulae to the fish? How were these formulae derived from the fish?
Then I began to reflect on the fish, as I could not name any of them from a glance. I wanted to know why they were chosen to be displayed in this exhibition. Were these ancient species of fish that survived various extinction events? Were these fish local to the Lower Mainland, or generally to BC? Quantum Fish School made me realize I felt out-of-touch with not just fish, but with nature in general. It would be easier to name company logos than what freshwater creatures reside in the Lower Mainland.
Quantum Fish School successfully prompted me to reflect on my knowledge on local nature and my values regarding climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity across the world.
This fish school serves as a reminder for all not to lose our crucial connection to our environment, and to stay vigilant to the knowledge that nature provides us, whether that be from Indigenous ways of learning or from observational science.
The exhibition will be open until January 31, 2026, at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
