Through the months of January and February the AKA/Paved gallery space will take the form of a studio and workshop space featuring Todd Gronsdahl as artist in residence. Todd will be working in the space developing a window gallery exhibition alongside which AKA will be piloting a workshop space we are developing with PAVED Arts to offer a new working space for members.

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.”

We convened the 5^th meeting of La Ligue Gourmand. We dined at Emma Lake’s re-assembled Studio and welcomed new members to La Ligue. The event had a decided lake feel with the following menu...

In 2021 I initiated the Capsule Contemporary Art Project gallery, restaurant and studio at 210 Ave P S in Saskatoon, SK. I am proud that I was able to launch eight exhibitions, host an artist residency, partner with AKA Artist Run Centre and Blackflash Magazine...

Storm clouds buttress themselves against windward slopes, releasing precipitation before dissipating over summits and across leeward landscapes The western shores of Vancouver Island and the mainland become saturated, while unburdened clouds scatter lightly and interact with other weather patterns over the island’s eastern coastline. Here on Snuneymuxw territory, this effect manifests in a mix of sunshine, periodic showers, and an abundance of rainbows.

Todd Gronsdahl’s interdisciplinary practice challenges truth, fiction and the construction of historical narratives. The exhibition is an immersive installation of fictional museum exhibits, employing irony to highlight the randomness of museum and archive logic. By playing, tampering and reconfiguring archival documentation, Gronsdahl intentionally legitimizes mythologies, loosely retracing residual marks of past events.

Saskatchewan Maritime Museum challenges truth, nation-building, and history-making. With confidence, Todd Gronsdahl invents a new history for Saskatchewan. One that involves an inventor, explorers sailing in the Prairie waterways, and military fending off foreign invaders who attack from the river’s depths.

“The Saskatchewan Maritime Museum Presents, La Ligue Gourmand” consists of fake artifacts, museological props, and didactics outlining (my invented) histories referencing lore of innovation. At the fifty fifty gallery, I present an unusual meal in the “museum” with the pretense of promoting flamboyance, humour, and absurdity as important stratagies to elaborate on histories true and invented.

Au début de la pandémie, Todd Gronsdahl a reporté ses installations et ses performances alimentaires pour explorer les récits du Musée maritime de la Saskatchewan par le biais d'animations stop-motion. Comme les restrictions liées à la pandémie continuent d'altérer nos possibilités de voyager, nous avons décidé de collaborer pour vous présenter le Super Sommet d'la Bouffe!

The Fort Gallery is pleased to present La Ligue Gourmande, an exhibition by Vancouver Island-based artist Todd Gronsdahl. This exhibition is part of the gallery’s four-part series, Making Home, which invites reflection on our changing relationship to the domestic sphere. Of all the cultural casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic the dinner party is certainly foremost among them.

Have you heard anyone say, "In a month of Sundays?" or "A snowball's chance in July?"These are phrases of disbelief that imply something is impossible and will never happen or never succeed. Artist Todd Gronsdahl's Saskatchewan Maritime Museum is a similarly impossible situation. Saskatchewan is a landlocked province; it doesn't border any oceans or seas. So, how could it have a maritime (relating to or bordering on the sea) history?

“In an effort to settle under-utilized land, elected officials offered farm implements to those who were willing to settle on the dry slough beds of central Saskatchewan. Pictured here is the Yurt for Effective Animal Husbandry. The Y.E.A.H. promised users “thoughtfull design” and “new modes of living.” This pod housed chickens, a food source common to the regular old mode of living”

"Under a socialist mandate, there emerges a fervor among researchers in psychoactive drug therapy. Sensing an opportunity, Gaspar invests great personal fortune in researching a drug that could be produced from native aquatic plants.While sequestered in his Northern Saskatchewan research dome, much knowledge was gathered via the experiments. Though no psychoactivity was derived from the resulting serum, Gaspar does accidentally discover a source of vitamin B Gaspar vows to never again labour for the pursuit of profit." This project was in partnership with The Saskatchewan Foundation For the Arts and Dynamo Arts Association.

“The Aqua Dynamo was a prototype for a power producing river turbine from early last century. This turbine was to be ordered from the Western Producer and assembled on site.”
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This work is infused with optimism, DIY ethic and perhaps entrepreneurial hubris. A short sighted inventions that complicate life and and doesn't consider expertise involved in using it. Imagine a pioneer assembling and employing this turbine with hopes of powering an automatic washing machine. As opposed to simply helping with the wash.

Todd Gronsdahl’s interdisciplinary practice challenges truth, fiction and the construction of historical narratives. Saskatchewan Maritime Museum is an immersive installation, employing irony to highlight the randomness of museum and archive logic. By playing, tampering and reconfiguring archival documentation, Gronsdahl intentionally legitimizes mythologies, loosely retracing residual marks of past events.

The Ballistic Missile Defense System. A case of “hidden in plain sight” this architectural vision played an indispensable role in defending the Saskatchewan river system from aquatic attack during WW2

Mind the Gap! was a fascinating installation of unusual scope, celebrating the enormous diversity of talent among emerging and mid-career artists in Saskatchewan. Featuring the work of 27 artists from every nook and cranny cross the province: North Battleford, Canora, La Ronge, Lloydminster, Moose Jaw, North Portal, Pense, Prince Albert, Regina, Rockglen, Saskatoon, Shellbrook and Swift Current, this exhibition provided not only a fresh perspective, but a visual, cerebral and geographic map of the emerging arts landscape in Saskatchewan... 

(Gronsdahl’s) work references conspiracy theories through the fabrication of fictional stories of local personalities. He also parodies himself as the naive hermit folk artist. His installation is a mini make believe world created with humour, which examines and plays with our social constructions and realities. Gronsdahl creates a space where we can laugh at and question the directions in which we construct our world-view on personal, community, and societal levels.
- Adrian A. Stimson, Curator

Employing local architecture, personalities and situations to elucidate the absurd and paranoid POV of an imagined folk artist, Orville Middleton.