Making 'Abat-Jour', 2026

'Abat Jour' was designed and installed for the 26th Yukon Riverside Arts Festival as part of The Klondike Institute of Art & Culture's (KIAC) 'Re:Imagine | Re:Create' program, presented in collaboration with STEPS Public Art @stepspublicart, with additional generous support provided by @canada.council The work is built to house and enable the growth of local keystone, edible and medicinal plant species; whereby the architectural body functions as both a refuge for the transplanted flora, as well as an enabler of their reproductive capacities. The structure itself—with its central elevated ring of live plants surrounding an opening—allows for wind currents to flow underneath and up through the structure, propelling pollen and dispersing seeds beyond their typical capabilities. The structure also creates space for birds, insects and small mammals, which can find refuge in the structure’s interior or within its elevated garden. As such, the work acts as a collaborative endeavour between human and non-human, whereby the capacity of those endemic plants housed by the construction is boosted by the structure itself, as well as by providing niches for secondary inhabiting species to occupy. In doing so, the plant species are better able to spread out and occupy the work’s surroundings over time. See more about the work at: https://linktr.ee/justintylertate https://justintylertate.weebly.com   / justin_tyler_tate   MATERIALS Discarded & reused wood, miscellaneous screws, ​reused nails, canvas, soil, & local keystone plants. DIMENSIONS: 5.25m x 2.8m x 5.25m I humbly and gratefully acknowledge the opportunity to stay, learn, and create on Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in traditional and contemporary territory. © 2026 Justin Tyler Tate