“44(H) x 50(Y)” is a multidisciplinary body of work that reflects on a life shaped by movement, memory, and regeneration. Reaching the age of 50, and having lived in 44 different houses across Western Canada, this project becomes a creative act of mapping identity through place, reclaiming fragmented memories, and exploring the role of community—past and present—in healing and growth. The body of work includes 44 hand-drafted cyanotype floor plans, pressed botanical assemblages, ceramic vessels, and a collaborative 16mm experimental short film. Through this work, I aim to visualize the emotional residue of space, offer space for difficult memories to be witnessed, and create tangible pathways toward healing—both personal and communal. These works are part architectural blueprint, part self-portrait, part herbarium of resilience. As a survivor of prolonged sexual abuse, revisiting these domestic spaces invites difficult but necessary questions: What does safety look like? How is memory shaped by trauma? Can art offer a new relationship to the past?
Through this process, I engage with deeply personal experiences while acknowledging the broader social silence that often surrounds abuse. My intention is not to tell a story of harm, but of survival, strength, and renewal. This intergenerational collaboration explores how memory is fragmented, passed down, and reconstructed across time. At its core, “44(H) x 50(Y)” is a project about the human need to feel rooted—in ourselves, in our communities, and in the world around us. By speaking to difficult subjects like sexual abuse and housing instability through accessible, tactile media, I aim to normalize conversations around trauma and foster empathy through artistic transparency. This body of work seeks to honor the complexity of rootedness—how healing is nonlinear, deeply creative, and often shaped by the landscapes and relationships that hold us. It asks audiences to consider how they carry their own histories of place, how we build new narratives from moving spaces (literally or figuratively), and how art can become a vehicle for individual and collective restoration.
Through this project, I offer not only my story, but a space for others to locate themselves—somewhere between vulnerability, resilience, and transformation
About the Artist
Kari Fisher (she/her) is a multidisciplinary emerging artist based in Merville, BC. Drawing on her backgrounds in interior design, floral design, permaculture, and celluloid filmmaking, her practice explores themes of memory, displacement, and healing. Having lived in 44 homes across Western Canada, Kari’s work reflects a life shaped by constant movement and the search for rootedness. Through cyanotype printmaking, ceramics, botanical assemblage, and 16mm film, she transforms personal history into visual narratives that invite reflection, empathy, and collective dialogue. Her work is deeply influenced by the natural world and the emotional landscapes of domestic space. She is particularly interested in how art can hold space for trauma while fostering restoration and connection.