2026

Through the Prism of a Fire

by Johannes Zits
@johanneszits
www.johanneszits.com

May - July 2026

In recent years, wildfires have become increasingly frequent and severe around the world and across Canada, burning larger areas and lasting longer than before. Once largely confined to remote regions, these fires now encroach on communities, displace people and wildlife, and transform entire ecosystems. 

Through the Prism of a Fire is a panoramic image capturing the aftermath of a forest fire that swept through a clear-cut and its surrounding landscape in 2024, near a creek in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, within the unceded territory of the Lhtako Dene Nation.

While fire is a natural part of the forest’s life cycle, increased and sustained human activity has disrupted this balance. Industrial logging, monocultures, and conventional forestry practices have stripped away the diversity and resilience that once allowed ecosystems to recover. Rising temperatures and decades of suppressing natural burns have left forests unnaturally dense and fuel-laden. Together, these pressures have transformed fire from a regenerative force into a destructive one, reshaping not only the land but also the communities, human and more-than-human, that depend on it.

Presented as a large-scale billboard within the intimate confines of a laneway, the work brings a distant and often inaccessible landscape into the urban environment. Though viewers encounter only an image of the site, the scale and proximity of the photograph evoke a visceral sense of presence, an invitation to reflect on the magnitude and immediacy of a crisis that feels both remote and profoundly close to home.

The work also resonates with the artist’s ongoing practice as a performance-based artist exploring the relationships and meanings expressed through both human and non-human bodies. Zits expands the notion of performance to include the more-than-human beings he engages with, rocks, water, and plants, recognizing their vitality and agency within shared ecosystems. His process of witnessing, listening, and moving with these presences reflects an awareness that life unfolds through interdependence and reciprocity. Whether through the rhythm of water, the resilience of trees, or the slow transformation of stone, Zits’ practice acknowledges how each being contributes to cycles of decay and renewal. In this context, Through the Prism of a Fire can be seen as both documentation and dialogue, an image that bears witness to the land’s transformations and reminds us that destruction, too, carries the potential for regeneration.

Bio

Johannes Zits (Toronto, ON) holds a BFA from York University. For over 40 years, he has performed and exhibited his art extensively across Canada and around the world in such places as Zendai Contemporary, Shanghai; ATEA, Mexico City; and International BNL of Asuncion, Paraguay. His work is in public collections such as the Copenhagen Contemporary Museum, The Alberta Arts Foundation, and York University.

Find Alleyway Gallery

Artist, Eric Garsonnin

August - October 2026

Title: TBA

A Dispatch from the No Hands Land

by Ivan Rupeš

ivanrupes.com
@ivanrupes
@IvanRupesPhotography

November 2026 - April 2027

Small town, Ontario. On this side, a sleepy residential neighbourhood, a row of cookie cutter homes, backyards hidden away behind plank fences. Then a road, beat-up at places by an occasional stream of heavy trucks hurtling down the street on shipping days. On the opposite side behind me, a sprawling industrial park. 

Out of curiosity, I checked the municipal zoning maps. Residential 2 (R2) here, Light Industrial (LM) there. There are also Environmental Constraint (EC) and Open Space (OS) zones carving a narrow strip of greenspace by the lake to my left. Another OS zone designated inside the industrial park, behind a fence topped with barbed wire (“No trespassing”). On the far end, a parking for transport truck trailers and then a few hundred acres of OS with some grassland, patches of woodland, and a creek in the middle, also behind barbed wire (“Authorized personnel only”).

Someone in the UK calculated that full 92% of the land in England is squarely off limits to the public. How lucky we are here in Canada with our boundless expanses, distant horizons and breathtaking natural wonders. But for many people, such places are out of reach. So what if we considered only the more densely populated regions, like this one? I couldn’t find the number. But I suspect it wouldn’t be much different from England.

I think of my octogenarian mother back in my home country picking up her walking stick for an afternoon stroll, then sauntering a few blocks down to a path and into the open fields where she tries to spot the larks in the air and listen to their chirping through her hearing aid. Nature connectedness is a thing. It reflects the extent to which individuals perceive the overlap of self and nature and to which they include nature as part of their identity. Turns out people scoring high on this trait enjoy improved wellbeing and mental health. They are also more likely to act in environmentally friendly ways. But what happens if we are mostly confined to a grid of lines designed to bring us from point A to point B, preferably by car, and most of the fields with the resident songbirds along the way, if there are any, are by definition none of our business? At the very least, it doesn't help. 

A group of researchers in the UK and Austria measured connection to nature among the population in over 60 countries around the world. The developed industrialized nations didn’t fare well. The UK ranked near bottom, Canada ended up even lower, and for the record, Czechia, the country of my mother and the larks, languished behind as well. Other studies indicate the measure has been in steady decline everywhere for decades.

Now, let’s be realistic. We live in a complicated world. There is no shortage of critical issues impacting our lives. There are priorities. But still. It’s all part of the same equation.

Like this street I am standing on.

Behind me, on the LM side, there is a construction going on. Barriers, ditches, mechanical diggers ripping the ground open. I get it, the infrastructure upgrade for the industrial park was badly needed and long overdue.

Then, on the R2 side, there is this girl. Oblivious to the municipal zoning regulations and scientific indices, on a stretch of grass between the backyards and the road (public access), she is practicing an aerial, a cartwheel with no hands. It took some time. Also some determination, focus and quite a few failed attempts. But in the end, she did it. She did to the ground what the folks on the LM side wouldn’t: She didn’t touch it.

Bio

Ivan Rupeš is a Toronto-based photographer. In his work Rupeš examines complexities of the human relationship with the environment. He is especially drawn to probing the nuances and ironies of the ways humans affect their habitat and the ways it affects them back. Rupeš was born in what is now the Czechia. He started out as a biomedical researcher whose career brought him first to the US and then to Canada. Currently, he takes on documentary projects both in Canada and around the world. His work among the indigenous peoples of the northern Philippines was presented at the 2021/2022 Earth Photo Exhibition in the UK. Over the past several years, Rupeš has been extensively involved in organizing and digitizing an archive of Czech 20th century avant-garde photographer Jaromír Funke.