“When I was invited to develop a project for the 2008 opening of the Gehry addition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, I researched into the history of the gallery’s original site; a house built by the Bolten family in 1817. I learned that that mansion that would later become the AGO was maintained by countless employed servants, many of whom were Irish immigrants. But they don’t appear anywhere in the recorded history that is celebrated today. In fact, I found no archived record of servants who were employed during the first two decades of the house’s operation. I therefore felt free to invent them.”   -Iris Häussler

Read in-depth interview/review written by Gillian MacKay for Canadian Art magazine downloadable here as a scanned PDF (13 MB).

Main Hall
He Named Her Amber - The Visitor's View
The story of Mary O'Shea and the remarkable artefacts displayed to visitors at the Art Gallery of Ontario's exhibition.
He Named Her Amber - The Archeologist's View
In Spring 2008, Antropological Services Ontario (ASO) was retained to investigate features in The Grange, one of Canada's National Historic Sites. Guided by a crude map...
He Named Her Amber - The Curator's Statement
The key question is not whether her excavation is true or false, rooted in verifiable historical fact or based on fabricated narratives, but is rather to assess the intensity of a resonant art experience...
He Named Her Amber - The Artist's View
He named her Amber" spans the space between fiction and nonfiction. Where there is an initial construct of reality, it must be followed by revealing the fictitious aspects of the project...
He Named Her Amber - The Protagonist's View
According to our best reconstruction, "Amber" was born in 1811 as Mary O'Shea, eldest child of Irish tenant farmers near Kilkenny, Ireland.