The World Is a Very Narrow Bridge / Yael Brotman

SNAP is pleased to present The World Is a Very Narrow Bridge, featuring new work by Yael Brotman. The exhibition runs from October 11 – November 15, 2025 at SNAP Gallery. 

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 11, 7-9 pm

Artist Talk: October 11, 6-7 pm

Artist Statement

We are living in difficult times. Extreme climatic events and political dramas are creating chaos. The World Is a Very Narrow Bridge, this exhibition’s title, implies that we should be fearful because of the precarious path we are on. When taken literally, I admit that the prospect of crossing a thin suspension bridge causes my vertigo to kick in. But I have developed strategies of watching the horizon and not peering into the chasm below. Metaphorically, we want to remain above that chasm harbouring humanity’s dark impulses. To brace that bridge and calm the confusion around us, we must consider personal actions that we can take: lingering, thinking quietly and cultivating small-scale moments. These would help us make sense of experience and imagine new ways of understanding where we’re at. 

In this exhibition I present bodies of work that examine resilience and hope, antidotes to harm that humanity can inflict. The 2020–22 series, Sandbags round my life, was created during COVID lockdown when everyone needed emotional support in their isolation. ‘Sandbags’ is a reference to my teenage years in Winnipeg when people helped fill sandbags to protect houses from the rising waters of the rivers. The rivers flooded every spring and each time, the community came out to help. This series also explores the experience of human migration, resulting from climate disasters and wars, and the precarious nature of temporary shelters.

A book installation in this exhibition, Intake; Vision and Dignity at the Mount Carmel Clinic, speaks to the resilience and inventiveness of New Canadians. I interviewed people who had been connected historically to the Mount Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg’s North End and those who currently work there. The free Clinic was begun in 1926 by Jewish immigrants from Poland; women were on the first board and bought the land for the Clinic. It became an important model of success that inspired Tommy Douglas to imagine universal healthcare in Canada. The Clinic with its mandate of patient-centric health now serves the local Indigenous community and influxes of immigrants who live nearby. The prints in the book are based on an amalgam of archival photos, the words of my interviewees and my personal experience as a child at the Clinic.

Another body of work, from which the title of the exhibition borrows its name, is ongoing. It examines in a poetic way a searching for balance so needed in our world. Our inherent capacity for creative thinking and for invention in engineering (mechanical, digital, and social) may offer solutions. Yet we must temper our inclination for rapid answers with attention to nuance and small-scale quiet moments of connection with nature. And balance our eco-anxiety with humour, lightheartedness, and colour. To that end, I have also installed Dance Party in the front windows of SNAP. Let’s remember to be joyful, an action of resistance that can dissipate fear and steady a narrow shaky bridge. 

About the Artist

Yael Brotman RCA has a multi-faceted practice based in printmaking, print-based sculpture, and installation. She incorporates imagery suggesting human-made constructions and structures found in nature, exploring themes of control, chance, and mystery.

Brotman has exhibited both internationally and in Canada. International exhibition sites include Tokyo, Alexandria (Egypt), Krakow, Kyoto, Berlin, Jingdezhen (China), New York, and Santander (Spain). Canadian exhibition sites include Haida Gwaii, Hamilton, Trois-Rivières, Kelowna, Winnipeg, and Toronto.

Brotman has been awarded numerous grants as well as residencies including in China, Australia, Ireland, Haida Gwaii, and most recently in Svalbard, Norway. Her work is represented in many corporate and public collections.

She lives in Toronto and was a professor for many years at the University of Toronto, teaching drawing, painting, and thesis courses. She has also served on the boards of the Print and Drawing Council of Canada, Open Studio (Toronto), and CARFAC Ontario and CARFAC National, the latter two being related organizations that promote the rights of Canadian artists.