What the Body Knows (Can't be Forgotten)

Jenny Swift

Three long shelves, crowded with antique glass medicine bottles and the messages they bear.

About this work

A visualization of the body as a vessel for narrative – as when an emptied bottle becomes a device for encapsulating messages of greatest urgency and intimacy, conveying them through the elements, across the sea. Installed in a vitrine on the South side of Chumir Health Centre are three long shelves, crowded with antique glass medicine bottles and the messages they bear. Ranging from clear to milky to iridescent, these old bottles provide the vehicle for fragments, secrets and stories – shuttling between thresholds. Mirrors, both aged and new, line the back of the vitrine, imparting intermittent messages through the glass bottles that have been placed as intermediaries between text and viewer - an effect which could alternately cloud or magnify our comprehension.

Details

Title
What the Body Knows (Can't be Forgotten)
Type
Installation
Creator
Jenny Swift(Artist)
Interest holder
The City of Calgary(Commissioning Body)

Location & access

Sheldon M. Chumir Centre, street-level display window

1213 4 Street SW

Calgary, Alberta, CA T2R 0X7

Publicly accessible
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Last updated March 20, 2026

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Calgary Public Art Guide

What the Body Knows (Can't be Forgotten)

Jenny Swift

Three long shelves, crowded with antique glass medicine bottles and the messages they bear.

About this work

A visualization of the body as a vessel for narrative – as when an emptied bottle becomes a device for encapsulating messages of greatest urgency and intimacy, conveying them through the elements, across the sea. Installed in a vitrine on the South side of Chumir Health Centre are three long shelves, crowded with antique glass medicine bottles and the messages they bear. Ranging from clear to milky to iridescent, these old bottles provide the vehicle for fragments, secrets and stories – shuttling between thresholds. Mirrors, both aged and new, line the back of the vitrine, imparting intermittent messages through the glass bottles that have been placed as intermediaries between text and viewer - an effect which could alternately cloud or magnify our comprehension.

Details

Title
What the Body Knows (Can't be Forgotten)
Type
Installation
Creator
Jenny Swift(Artist)
Interest holder
The City of Calgary(Commissioning Body)

Location & access

Sheldon M. Chumir Centre, street-level display window

1213 4 Street SW

Calgary, Alberta, CA T2R 0X7

Publicly accessible
Google Maps

Nearby

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Last updated March 20, 2026

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