Peering Inward: Friendship and Memory in the Making of Asylum
Olivia Johnston and Neeko Paluzzi, Garden of earthly delights, documentation by Rob Little at SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre (Ottawa), 2024.
Walking into the SPAO Centre felt like an invitation to look inward. Dozens of boxes floated in the air and lined the walls, each one a carefully curated world of its own. Some displayed intimate raw moments, while others paid homage to the grandeur of Christian iconography. Retro-inspired models posed with a striking nostalgia, juxtaposed against the delicate twinkle of fairy lights that gave the space a dreamlike glow. Each box invited the viewer to linger, to piece together fragments of imagery and meaning, and to step into a narrative that felt both deeply personal and universally resonant. People moved through the space like currents, some tracing deliberate paths between the works, others rooted in contemplation before a single box.
I couldn’t help but wonder: do the viewers, in peering into these works, glimpse echoes of their own lives—just as Olivia Johnston and Neeko Paluzzi have found deeper understanding of one another through the lens of their own introspection? Is this an asylum for the self—a space where looking inward reveals not only what we’ve lost, but also what connects us to others?
Asylum is part of SPAO’s 20th anniversary celebrations: the exhibition will be on view until mid-February.
After experiencing the exhibition, I had the opportunity to speak with Johnston and Paluzzi about their creative collaboration—appropriately enough, over Zoom, contained within our own little box.
Olivia Johnston and Neeko Paluzzi, Garden of earthly delights (detail), documentation by Rob Little at SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre (Ottawa), 2024.
What drew you to working together for the exhibition Asylum?
(Neeko): I think it's important to acknowledge our friendship. Olivia and I have had a years-long friendship that started when she was a teacher at SPAO. I was one of her students, and although we’ve stayed friends since then, we’ve never formally collaborated artistically—until now. When the opportunity came to create a show as part of SPAO’s 20th anniversary celebrations, we were both really excited to see how we could work together.
It took about two months for us to settle on what the project was going to look like, because we’re both really cautious of the contours of our own practices and how we would ‘fit together.’ It started with friendship, but I think it also came from the fact that SPAO really wanted to create this anniversary show. Because we [had] both come back as instructors and lead the full-time programs curriculum, I think SPAO was looking for us to build something together that not only honoured our own practices, but also the institution.
(Olivia): I think friendship, and being part of a community together, really shaped this project. We both went through the full-time program at SPAO in different years, and that shared experience gave us a deep understanding of how SPAO works. It’s such a grassroots centre where students often come back as teachers, creating this really generous, collaborative educational space. That sense of connection probably laid the foundation for the work.
We also both come from academic backgrounds, so this project became a blend of grassroots art school energy and intellectualism. It’s a mix of appreciating art history, academic rigor, and the creative community that SPAO fosters.
Neeko, you mentioned “fit[ting] together.” How did your friendship play into those moments of collaborating?
(Neeko): “We made complementary works that felt like they honoured our own practices but also represented the other person’s practice. We wanted to create this collaborative silver gelatine print, and as we were going through these magazines, we could see each other in the images of strangers.
Olivia said, ‘Why don’t we switch the faces with our childhood photos, our childhood faces, and merge them with this boy and girl in this Lewis Carroll image?’ It was something we had both played with in our practices. Olivia has worked with modifying faces in Photoshop, and I’ve experimented with swapping faces in my photographs. It was this instinctual moment where we merged our ideas, which I found really fascinating.”
Olivia Johnston and Neeko Paluzzi, St, George and the Dragon (after Lewis Carrol), documentation by Rob Little at SPAO: Photographic Arts Centre (Ottawa), 2024.
(Olivia): “That goes back to the question of friendship. We’re not just collaborators saying, ‘I’ll produce this piece, you produce that piece, and we’ll both show up at the gallery.’ We understand each other’s lives and the contours of each other’s capacities, so we look out for one another.
I feel that the work we made—even the pieces we worked on separately—are almost like homages to one another and to each other’s practices.”
What was it like getting to know each other's childhood selves?
(Neeko): “We're both interested in the childhood state as a form of memory, but also as a photographic object. We both talked about what we remember, and what we don't remember.
Olivia made an interesting comment when we were installing the work, and I think I was recalling this memory for some reason I can't remember what exactly that memory was. But Olivia said, “how do you remember so much?” It's really only certain memories I have very clear recollection of, whereas a lot of my childhood I have just kind of blurred or trauma has erased itself from my brain.
I almost became a stranger in the installation because of the objects; the childhood mementos and images are just one of hundreds of strange images from photo magazines and textbooks. I almost disappear[ed]. But pairing them with Olivia, it almost made me wonder: were we friends? And I just forgot? And it just kind of disappeared with the rest of those weird memories?”
(Olivia): “Photography has this relationship with real and objective truth. Making an image where we exist as children in the 1800s and are playing in an attic somewhere. It's like, ‘Sure. Why not?’ It's there. It exists because it's in a photo.
We are interrogating the photograph as an object. As something that tells the truth and its relationship with reality. We can have memories that aren't real. You can literally remember stuff that's not true. So What? And it's the post truth era.”
Did you have an intended effect that you were hoping to invoke through the exhibition?
(Neeko): “This is where we diverge. The magic of this installation is because there are two brains and two bodies creating it. You can have divergent interpretations of it.”
(Olivia): “In therapy, it was suggested to me that as you go through the process of healing—say, from childhood trauma—your body becomes more capable of accessing memories that were once closed off. It’s like the boxes of memories taped shut in the attic of your mind start to open. As you heal, your body begins to understand that you’re ready to remember, and new memories are released. There’s the weight of one’s own personal history and what you choose to leave shut; all the boxes are open in our case.”
Did you always know you were going to use boxes?
(Neeko): “Oh, we flip flopped a lot. We saw an image of an artist who had used shipping crates as a plinth in the gallery. We both kind of looked at that and said, “that's a charged object that has the meaning of keeping an object safe but also hiding it and storing it.” We both saw that there was power in that.
Now, due to budgets, we could not afford 100 or even, like, really, a dozen really good shipping crates and I think we both kind of looked like, Well, what about some boxes? It was sick. And you kept saying, Olivia, “this is such a great medium.” And I couldn't agree more. It's cheap, but also beautiful.”
(Olivia): “I've been a hoarder and collector my whole life. I've just always held on to objects. It's a way to hold on to the past. Photographs are a way to hold on to the past.
Neeko was really careful to only use used boxes. They all have people's writing on them. There's tape. They say, ‘people's bedroom.’ These people who had no idea what their boxes were going to be used for are now in an exhibition. And their handwriting is also part of this exhibition. It’s this collaboration. Not only between me and Neeko and like all of these photographers throughout history, but also the people who gave us their boxes.”
Asylum is a powerful title. How do you interpret this concept within the exhibition?
(Olivia): “It has to do with the history of mental illness. I'm open about my chronic illnesses. You know, I am not a well person. I look back in history, particularly the history of women in the medical field or women being treated. Women have been overly medicalized; put into homes and mental asylums. It has a negative connotation. When in fact, asylums connotate peace. Connotate safety.
I think our students are looking for a kind of asylum or safe space [at SPAO] where they can be themselves. It is a testament to SPAO’s role in our lives, our students, and our communities. It is a safe space for people. More broadly too, the arts are a safe space or asylum. People are looking for an escape from the horrors. We are trying to produce some joy, some excitement, some beauty in people's lives.”
What is next for both of you? Do you see future collaborations?
(Neeko): “Never again. Haha. No, I think it kind of broke the seal for me.
I've kind of leaned more towards the solitary - only because I can be difficult to work with. That isn't because I'm a mean person, I just hear the voices in my head when I make art, and I have a difficult time articulating it. Olivia really helped bring that out of me. I hope that we do collaborate again, because there's like an improvisation that we have with each other. I hope we do collaborate again.
2025, thankfully, is a soft exhibition year. I'm focusing solely on my pedagogical task of working with the SPAO team to figure out how we can make the full-time program more approachable for folks across Ottawa, Ontario and Canada. I am really trying to build the SPAO brand and get the best people that we can for the full time program, that's where I'm going to be focusing for 2025.”
(Olivia): “I've always been a collaborator. I make art because I have to. It's just who I am. I also make art a lot of the time because I have a really high work ethic again, so I just keep working. And when other people emerge, I'm like ‘heck yeah, let's do a thing.’ So I love collaborating. It is a challenge, but when it's with my best friends, I'm just like, ‘fun!’ I'd love to work together with Neeko.
Academia is coming up. And then what's next for me? I'm also, you know, engaged with the pedagogy side of SPAO. I'm currently undertaking an MFA at uOttawa. So yeah, just keep busy with that. I don't know. Stay tuned. See what 2025 holds for me.
It's going to be crazy.”
For more on Olivia Johnston, https://www.oliviajohnston.com
For more on Neeko Paluzzi, http://www.paluzzi.ca/biography