boyish as a birch tree was presented at Swift Current Art Gallery in 2025. Curated by Luke Maddaford.

Using memory as a site to explore place, familial relationships, and identity, boyish as a birch tree poses the question of who remembers and how that memory is shared. Referencing the rich tradition of heraldry, which utilizes symbolic imagery to identify families and institutions through coats of arms and to accompany official proclamations, Logan MacDonald rethinks and re-establishes signs and symbols, disrupting the colonial expectations of heraldry to explore the world around him.

Reflecting on the relationship between memory and time, MacDonald utilizes both familial and community histories to draw connections between generations. Looking to his father’s woodcarving practice, MacDonald invokes bodily memory through the repetition of forms and processes. The work proposes a past and present that operate in tandem, repeating and reflecting, back and forth.

boyish as a birch tree is presented within the context of family, community, and place, exploring how memory is gained, lost, and lives within us, moving between the personal, public, and social.

- Luke Maddaford