New Age Beaver is an exhibition that examines the work of Canada’s most beloved animal architect, the beaver. For this project, Ottawa-based artist Maura Doyle presents a series of sculptural works and drawings that suggest that the beaver’s work is not so different from human endeavors.

For this project, Ottawa-based artist Maura Doyle presents a series of sculptural works and drawings that suggest that the beaver’s work is not so different from human endeavors. In one particular sculpture, a chewed beaver log is displayed as a relic of a gesture: Doyle personally carried the log through the Panama Canal by boat during a family vacation to Panama in 2009.

In her artists’ book A Guide to Beaver Architecture: Sticks and Mud Reconsidered, Doyle writes:

“The Panama Canal connects not forest ponds but the world’s two biggest bodies of water. Here the Pacific Ocean blends with the waters of the Atlantic. As one of the greatest engineering feats in the history of humankind, the Panama Canal offers a unique point of comparison with the work of the beaver, not only of architectural accomplishment, but also the ingenuity, ambition and progress often associated with animal builders.

The greatest differences between the Panama Canal and a beaver canal are that of scale, the Capital that made the former possible, and the shipping of goods worldwide – as opposed to the ferrying of logs, sticks and branches 600 feet or less. The greatest similarity, between human and beaver, however, would be our shared ability to transform the landscape beyond necessity. Our constructed habitats are purely optional.”