What We Inherit
What We Inherit
An exhibition of work by Natalie Hunter and Heidi McKenzie
Workers Arts and Heritage Centre
Hamilton, Ontario
February 7, 2025 - April 12, 2025
What legacies of labour do we inherit? From pride, activism, and working-class values to injuries, diseases and pollution, the work of Natalie Hunter and Heidi McKenzie in What We Inherit reveals how the legacies of family members’ occupations shape us. Using media that evoke basic elements, the artists ask, how do years of labour performed by our family members occupy every breath, etch onto the skin, leave residues in the body?
Images of structures once populated by workers cast through film celebrate Hunter’s family legacy at Slater Steel and Stelco while mourning the effects of deindustrialization. In earthenware McKenzie explores the impact of work in Trinidad’s oil refinery on her father’s health. Using ceramic tile and video projection McKenzie explores bodily traces of her ancestors who worked their way to Canada from Belfast and India by way of the Caribbean.
Hunter and McKenzie also represent the labour legacy of their maternal lineage in farming, weaving, housework and reproduction using porcelain, ceramic, and photography. Time has moved on, yet what of this work does our heart and body remember?