Organized by: Patrick Mahon, Ulises Unda, and Andres Villar Artists: Esteban Ayala, Gautam Garoo, Jenny Jaramillo, Patrick Mahon, Ulises Unda, Gu Xiong

Mountains and Rivers Without End (MRWE) was a collaborative research and exhibition project that began in the fall of 2014 as a joint initiative between Patrick Mahon, and Ulises Unda, an Ecuadorean artist and PhD candidate in the Visual Arts Department at Western University, and that came to include Andres Villar, a lecturer in that Department who is originally from Columbia. An initial residency in Ecuador in May 2015 brought together Canadian and Ecuadorean artists and scholars, and the result of this collaboration was an exhibition at the Municipal Museum of Modern Art in Cuenca, Ecuador, in February 2016. A second exhibition followed in June 2016, in Quito, at the Centre for Contemporary Art. And the third exhibition took place at the ArtLab, Western University, in November 2016, at the institution where MRWE was conceived and organized.

The project’s goal was to give members of the group of collaborating artists and researchers first-hand experience of the history and lingering effects of gold mining on the social, economic, and environmental fabric of the region surrounding the two towns of Portovelo and Zaruma that were colonized by American mining companies in the twentieth century, and where artisanal and international mining activities continue today.

Patrick Mahon’s work for the exhibition: Ascending and Descending: Water Works/Mountains digitally-altered photos on Tyvec with window screening and hardware, accompanied by a plastic pipe sculpture 2015

The work focuses on the abandoned swimming pool in the family housing complex of the former American mining company, SADCO.