Exhibition · A Space Gallery · Toronto
BROMELIAS: INHABITING WATER Alexandra Gelis A Space Main Gallery September 12 – October 24, 2026 Reception September 18, 2026, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm Artist Talk October 20, 2026, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm Essay by: alessia prati, Fabienne Liptay Bromelias: Inhabiting Water is a new iteration of Alexandra Gelis’s long-term project AGUA, developed through living and working alongside the Río El Vacilón, near Carara National Park and surrounding protected forest, Costa Rica. Before the camera, there was a body learning how to walk again. The dry bed of the Río El Vacilón became a path, but never a stable one. Alexandra learned to move slowly, listening with her feet and adjusting her body to stones, snakes, insects, sudden currents, humidity, and the changing breath of the forest. Walking became a way of filming before making an image. The camera arrived later. Then the bromeliads became guides. High in the tropical canopy, bromeliads grow upon trees and gather rainwater within the folds of their leaves. Water remains there, suspended above the river, forming small reservoirs where frogs, insects, and microorganisms live among sediment and decomposing matter. Each plant holds a body of water. Each body of water holds other bodies. The river was not only on the ground. It was also above her. Bromeliads are often mistaken for parasites and removed from trees. But what happens when we approach them as ecological infrastructures, as water keepers, habitats, and teachers? What forms of attention become possible when a plant is no longer reduced to scenery, symbol, or raw material, but encountered as a living participant in the work? Across the exhibition, water appears as path, force, habitat, and co-maker. It cuts through terrain, gathers within leaves, transforms plant matter, and carries bodies, images, and sounds. Moving images, sound, vibration, plant fibres, drawings, electronics, and sculptural structures carry traces of Alexandra’s encounters with water and the forest. Images…