Big Pond Small Fish

Big Pond Small Fish, in collaboration with , presents The Future, the Archive, the Great Story.

Join us on Friday, June 26, from 2–3:30 PM at the Archives of Ontario, located at 134 Ian MacDonald Blvd on York University’s campus, just 100 m from the York University subway station.

The performance follows eight young people as they move through the archive, its stories, and its futures.

More details to come soon —please mark your calendar for now. We’d love to see you there!

Join us for the wrap up of The Archive, the Future, the Commons. This newest initiative from Big Pond Small Fish asked five teens “What do you want to show your grandchildren, fifty years from now, about your life today?”

In answer, they documented stories about our present tumultuous moment as photographic records for an imagined future generation.

Realized in collaboration with Mammalian Diving Reflex, Norbu Dawa, Tara Ludding, Tenzin Tsephel, Tenzin Tsering, and Rinchen Tso; Isabel Ahat, , , and ; and with support from the .council . Thanks also to , , and

Tenzin Tsephel
“Naturescape”
edition of 750

Created by Big Pond Small Fish in cooperation with Mammalian Diving Reflex, The Archive, The Future, The Commons is a project of five postcard books by five young collaborators intended to be a message to future people about the lives of the artists who made them. The project started with a prompt: What do you want to show your grandchildren, fifty years from now, about your life today? 

The project has, lastly, been influenced by Guy Debord’s idea of “dérive” which allows for chance encounters, experimental behaviour, and actions that reposition art and geo-politics. 

“The Archive, the Future, the Commons” upends social norms and hierarchies, putting young people at the centre of planning, designing and leading the production while exploring questions about our relationship to the commons and the future. 
These postcards to the grandchildren are the product of a one-year experiment of falling apart and coming together, of drifting, of flickering with light and joy.

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Art Metropole, MKG127, Open Studio, Jack Bride and Zoë LePiano for their thoughtful contributions. Concept and editing by Krys Verrall and Bill Burns. Design by Shannon Griffiths. Slides by Jon Iñaki. Big Pond Small Fish acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts for its generous support.

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Tara Luding
“Days of Gasoline”
edition of 750

Created by Big Pond Small Fish in cooperation with Mammalian Diving Reflex, The Archive, The Future, The Commons is a project of five postcard books by five young collaborators intended to be a message to future people about the lives of the artists who made them. The project started with a prompt: What do you want to show your grandchildren, fifty years from now, about your life today? 

One of the inspirations for the project has been biologist and social critic Donna Haraway, who suggests we must recognize and cooperate with other people and species to dig into our social and ecological troubles and work hard to repair them. We are deeply entangled together than we know.

The project is nearly finished being archived, with the archive of the digital forms of the project showcasing its transitions from born-digital form to print and back again to digital. 

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Art Metropole, MKG127, Open Studio, Jack Bride and Zoë LePiano for their thoughtful contributions. Concept and editing by Krys Verrall and Bill Burns. Design by Shannon Griffiths. Slides by Jon Iñaki. Big Pond Small Fish acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts for its generous support.

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Tenzin Tsering
“The Great Shift”
edition of 750

Created by Big Pond Small Fish in cooperation with Mammalian Diving Reflex, The Archive, The Future, The Commons is a project of five postcard books by five young collaborators intended to be a message to future people about the lives of the artists who made them.

The project comes from our recent observations working alongside young people. They have told us that things are constantly falling apart and then coming together. This is their experience of the world. They describe it as a kind of flicker. This flicker is what The Archive, the Future, the Commons is built on. It is about looking at, documenting and sitting within shaky territory. It brings together some of our principal questions, such as “What are the commons?”, “How do we make things together?”, and expands upon them in the present to ask “How do we come together when we’ve fallen apart?”

Another inspiration for the project has been John Wall’s idea that making space for young people transforms broader normative imaginations. In other words, giving a voice to young people, allowing them to tell their stories, is transformative for all of us.

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Art Metropole, MKG127, Open Studio, Jack Bride and Zoë LePiano for their thoughtful contributions. Concept and editing by Krys Verrall and Bill Burns. Design by Shannon Griffiths. Slides by Jon Iñaki. Big Pond Small Fish acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts for its generous support.

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🌟 An unforgettable Tuesday! June 17 Big Pond Small Fish celebrated a Postcard Book Launch + Momo Party at Shangrila Tibetan & Asian Cuisine 🥟📬 — and it was magical.

We wrapped up The Archive, the Future, the Commons — an inspiring collaboration where five teens answered: “What do you want to show your grandchildren, fifty years from now, about your life today?” The result? A documentation of our tumultuous moment as a photographic record for an imagined future.

Co-created with Mammalian Diving Reflex, Norbu Dawa, Tara Ludding, Tenzin Tsephel, Tenzin Tsering, and Rinchen Tso; Isabel Ahat, Bill Burns, Shannon Griffiths, Zoe Lepiano and Krys Verrall.
Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.


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Very excited to be unpacking boxes from the printer of Tara’s wonderful postcard booklet Days of Gasoline

Tara is one of five teens participating since last fall in Big Pond Small Fish’s The Archive, the Future, the Commons publishing project. We asked them, what do you want to tell grandchildren 50 years from now about your lives today?

Contact us if you’d like to see the answer in 5 stunning accordion postcard booklets

Super big thanks to .luding and and .council

Tsephel notes all the ways we move through the city. Ancient city dwellers left their foots prints around Hanlans Point. Will street cars, bikes and automobiles still flow up and down Spadina Ave fifty years from now?
What do you imagine?

What piece of technology will you remember 10 years from now? Walter Benjamin wrote that he and the telephone were both born in the same year and for that reason were twins. Rinchen doesn’t imagine technology will be the same, but our lives will be twined with it.

What technologies from today, will you want to share with the future?

Rinchen is one of 5 teens creating visual records of everyday life today for future people. This Big Pond project created with Mammalian Diving Reflex will produce 5 postcard books. Mark your calendars. Look for the launch Spring 2025!
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What might you remember about your life today five years from now? Ten years? Or fifty?

I thought that for me it would be all the small ways that the natural non-human built presences appear through spaces between buildings or asphalt cracks. Tara, one of the The Archive, the Future, the Commons participants created this photo record.

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