Abat-Jour by Justin Tyler Tate
As part of the 2026 STEPS Public Art Residency, in partnership with Odd Gallery, Justin Tyler Tate, a Canadian-born, internationally recognized artist known for a diverse and prolific practice, created a monumental sculpture and land art, built using “waste” materials.
Project at a glance
Location: Dawson City, Yukon
Artists: Justin Tyler Tate
Documentarians: Justin Tyler Tate
Year: 2026
Services: Artist Capacity Building
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artist-in-residence
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temporary sculpture
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About Abat-Jour by Justin Tyler Tate
Abat-Jour is a monumental sculpture and land art, built using “waste” materials.
The work is a site-specific Post-Anthropocene Architecture 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.
For viewers, the garden held aloft the structure is at first obscured from view, with only brief glimpses of plants apparent from outside at certain angles. However, as one enters the double arch of the installation, the overhead halo of flora immediately comes into view, situating individuals in a diminished position relative to the colony of green stalks, grasses, and flowers overhead. Furthermore, one that enters the work is also placed under-earth, with all of the myriad of connotations that is implied therein. The work’s aesthetic—in its use of reused materials—and design is also reminiscent of the frontier architecture, boardwalks, and remains of old wooden mining devices that can be found in and nearby Dawson City. In this simulation, the work can be imagined within the traditions of an unrealized past, where plants existed as an important collaborator for phytomining, phytoremediation as well as land reclamation.
Plants included in the installation were gently and responsibly transplanted from the site of the June 2025 Dempster Corner Wildfire—where 19,545 hectares of forest near the Klondike Highway burned—as well as from within Dawson City limits. Plants were chosen specifically for their resilience, their importance to the surrounding ecosystem, in addition to their use as food, medicine or both. Examples of plants included in the installation include: bearberry, cranberry, fireweed, Labrador tea, mugwort, sphagnum mosses, wild rose, wild strawberry, and yarrow.
“For viewers, the garden held aloft the structure is at first obscured from view, with only brief glimpses of plants apparent from outside at certain angles. However, as one enters the double arch of the installation, the overhead halo of flora immediately comes into view, situating individuals in a diminished position relative to the colony of green stalks, grasses, and flowers overhead.”
About the Artist
Justin Tyler Tate
Justin Tyler Tate is a Canadian-born, internationally recognized artist known for a diverse and prolific practice. Receiving a BFA from NSCAD University and a MFA from Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts, his work spans the gamut of sculpture’s expanded field. Tate’s journey has included solo exhibitions at The Factory in Manchester, NH, USA (2023); Critical Distance Gallery in Toronto, Canada (2019); and Temporary in Helsinki, Finland (2017). He’s been featured in group exhibitions such as ‘Art in digital contexts and public spaces’ at LINZ FMR23 in Linz, Austria (2023); ‘The Jeju Biennale’ in Jeju, South Korea (2017); and the ‘Rewilding’ exhibition, at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada (2024-2025). Tate has also participated in numerous residency programs, occasionally curates exhibitions, and has authored several publications.
Funders
The 2026 STEPS Public Art Residency is made possible by support from TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment.
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