Todd Gronsdahl: The Saskatchewan Maritime Museum presents, Emma Lake’s Workshop Series

Todd Gronsdahl’s sculptural work presents subtle fantasies where what is believable is not necessarily true. Gronsdahl states: “My work tells an alternate history for Saskatchewan, based on actual events or accounts but reinvented. Employing humour, I tell an absurd narrative, containing enough truth to perhaps seem possible or at least muddle the official historical take. I am interested in ways hubris, legacy, and ego drive our historical project.” 

Gronsdahl leads with comical and pleasing design so that the work’s accessibility becomes a trojan horse for critical thinking about contemporary social and political issues. The artist’s light-hearted mythologies highlight a strange symptom of the Anthropocene, where memes hold more power than journalism. In contrast to the sinister edges of our social feeds, Gronsdahl’s manipulation of reality contains a distinct sense of innocence.

His tall tales exhibit a tenderness in considering the Saskatchewan landscape and the histories and mythologies that intertwine within specific locales. Imagination becomes the ultimate adventure. In this work, notions of what might have been ignite the possibility of a reimagined world – or at the very least, a desire for the storytelling never to end.