Michael Massie made a yellow door with 148 mosquitos for this year’s Bonavista Biennale. (Dave Paddon/Facebook)
His grandparents’ yellow and white front door in North West River loomed large for Michael Massie as a child.
The artist spent his summers there with his parents. And while it’s a place known for its beauty, Labrador is also well known for its flies.
Behind that front door, Massie could escape the swarms of mosquitos outside.
They would get stuck in the screen and he would take a little act of vengeance, plucking their stingers off.
These memories were front of mind when it came time to prepare a new piece for this year’s Bonavista Biennale.
The theme of the 2025 event is “String Games.” It calls on artists to submit pieces that tie them to their past.
“I wanted to recreate my grandparents’ door and have a bunch of mosquitos behind it, as though you were looking out the door and it was a beautiful day of mosquitos,” he told CBC Radio’s Labrador Morning. “So it was mostly about memory.”
Massie tried to make the door exactly as he remembered it. He recalled the yellow and white paint, and made the screen with 148 mosquitos, all crafted by hand, six pieces of brass soldered together.
“It was almost like hanging out with the mosquitos all the time, but the good thing is they didn’t sting,” Massie quipped.
And while the screen kept out the mosquitos, everyone else was welcome through that door.
A memory of home
Writer Dave Paddon came across Massie’s yellow door while visiting the Bonavista Biennale in August.
It wasn’t so much the mosquitos that caught his attention, but the door itself.
At first, Paddon didn’t know what he recognized — but he knew he recognized something.
Then it hit him. After 60-plus years, all the memories came flooding back.
“I could suddenly see that door clearly, and I could see Jim and May [Baikie], and I could remember going into their house and getting a glass of water, and playing around their door,” said Paddon.
Paddon grew up just down the road from the Baikies — Massie’s grandparents.
Several other memories came back for Paddon.
He remembered going for swims at the beach nearby.
He remembered all the houses on that street, he could see the generator and the power lines. And he remembered how the power used to get shut off.
Paddon said he never had an experience where memories came flooding back so vividly.
“I haven’t had anything quite that powerful,” he said.
Massie was surprised at how Paddon immediately recognized the door.Â
Making it brought lots of memories back for him, too.
“During the whole time making it, whether it was the mosquitos or the door itself, like Dave mentioned, it was just memories coming back from when we grew up in North West River,” he said.
When he tried to get squeaky hinges for the door, he remembered how the door would squeak and how his grandfather would yell at him when he let the door bang shut.
The piece will remain on display at the Factory Building in Port Union until Sept. 14.
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