Saskatchewan Martime Museum

Todd Gronsdahl

February 1st, 2022​​​​​

Main and State of Flux Galleries

“By playing, tampering and reconfiguring archival documentation, Gronsdahl intentionally legitimizes mythologies, loosely retracing residual marks of past events.”

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.

Photos by Chris Miner.

About the Artist - Todd Gronsdahl

Todd Gronsdahl is an artist from Saskatchewan working primarily in sculpture and drawing. Through the use of humour and narrative, Gronsdahl’s work complicates official histories and legitimizing mythologies. Informed by folk art and self-taught practioners, Gronsdahl treats his subject matter with a rural sensibility. Through a practical repurposing of vernacular forms and found materials, coupled with an intuitive approach to building, his work often has an unrefined or pragmatic aesthetic. Gronsdahl’s sculptures and drawings are charged with narrative potential. Each project emerges from invented stories and colorful characters that speak to his experience. His artwork is an enactment of these elaborate fictions with his sculptures, in particular, functioning not unlike museum replicas or artifacts.