Vernissage with Artist Talk : Friday, November 13, 2026. 6:00-8:00 PM

Gallery 101 proudly closes our 2026 season with a solo exhibition by Alexandra Gelis, presented in collaboration with the Musagetes Foundation. 

BROMELIAS: Currents Within the Forest is a new iteration of Alexandra Gelis’s long-term project AGUA, developed through living and working alongside the Río El Vacilón, near Carara National Park, Costa Rica. 

Before the camera, there was a body learning how to walk again. 

The dry riverbed became a path, but never a stable one. Moving among stones, snakes, insects, and sudden currents, Alexandra learned to listen with her feet. Walking became a way of filming before making an image. 

Then the bromeliads became guides. 

High in the canopy, bromeliads gather rainwater within their leaves, forming reservoirs inhabited by frogs, insects, and microorganisms. Each plant holds a body of water. Each body of water holds other bodies. 

The river was not only on the ground. It was also above her. 

Often mistaken for parasites, bromeliads become water keepers, habitats, and teachers. Across the exhibition, water acts as path, force, habitat, and co-maker. 

Moving images, sound, vibration, plant fibres, drawings, electronics, and sculptural structures carry these encounters into the gallery. Images inhabit materials rather than remaining separate from them. 

Fallen and discarded plant matter is transformed with river water. The resulting fibres are already images, already stories, holding traces of tissue, heat, hand, sediment, weather, and time. 

Worlds within worlds. 

Between riverbed and canopy, flowing water and suspended reservoirs, the exhibition invites visitors into relations already inhabited by other bodies and forms of life. Plants, weather, and creatures participate in the making, asking how we might move, listen, and coexist within these shared worlds. 

Presented with support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Thread Residency Program, Musagetes Fundation, accompanied by Elwood Jimmy.  

Artist’s acknowledgement 

Before the artwork, there were the waters of Río El Vacilón. I offer my gratitude to these waters, to the land through which they move, and to the plants, animals, and people of Las Monas who live alongside the river. I am especially grateful to Sky and Susy, my companions and teachers, who taught me how to listen and how to walk with this place. These waters and lives are among the makers of the work. 

To Sarita Bree Lozano, whose rebellious spirit opened the path and guided us here. 

To the spirit and strength of my mother, Cristina Lombana, who taught me to work alongside communities with love and respect, an ethic that continues to guide this work. 

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