For many reasons, writing this reflection on the life and practice of Carole Condé was poignant. This incredible, prolific artist passed away on July 19, 2024. Carole’s Garden was the final work she completed with her partner in art and life, Karl Beveridge. The wooden table in the work is their own and I have a particulary warm memory of sitting there with other Toronto artists at a party they hosted after the screening of the documentary, Portrait of Resistance. This wonderful film, by director Roz Owen, has stayed with me. In it, I saw through their example, a way to consider how to embed ethics into one’s vocation and by extension, one’s community.

In 2015 I travelled with them as part of The Power Plant delegation for the Creative Time Summit at the 56th Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures, curated by the late Okwui Ewenzor. Towards the end of our time there Carole and Karl hosted a dinner. Just as they were in their home on Bathurst Street, Toronto, Carole and Karl were warm hosts in their rented apartment. And Karl’s culinary skills were demonstrated with a spicy seafood stew made of the fresh catch-of-the-day. In my mind, I associate them with sitting around tables breaking bread with others from an extended, and international, art community.

Another aspect of their practice was making connections between labour and production to the human beings behind what we consume. They lived their practice and their concern, of the well being of others and the well being of the planet, our home.

The article was published at a time when the world is literally on fire. The scene in Carole’s Garden grows ever more real as each summer, thousands are faced with the decision to either withdraw inside their dwelling to escape the smoke or evacuate, leaving behind their homes with the hope that not everything will be lost.

This article is my small tribute to say thank you to them both: for their hospitality, their generousity and most importantly their concern.

In Carole’s Garden, Condé and Beveridge position the viewer at the table where the couple spent decades alongside each other making decisions about their art and their advocacy. In the mise en scène, remnants of breakfast and spilt water point to an urgency yet cultivate intimacy. For Condé, the three window frames could be understood as a medieval altarpiece, the snake in the tree a presage: while forest fires dominate the headlines more and more each year, the metaphorical Garden of Eden is burning. In what was to become their final work together, she has left us with a straightforward, salient request: “We all need to become gardeners. To root out the virus of capital. To grow for each other. To save the earth.”

Read full article on National Gallery of Canada Magazine.

Above Image: Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge website
Below images: Leah Snyder