Iris Häussler: Divided Heavens
In June 2025, Toronto-based conceptual artist Iris Häussler undertook an artist residency in the historic Tom Thomson Shack at the McMichael. Häussler is known for her immersive installations, often created in non‑traditional museum spaces, that revolve around fictitious personae and their artistic legacies.
Häussler’s installation at the McMichael, Divided Heavens, invites visitors into the fictitious world of German-born twin brothers, Kurt and Carl Pfister. Separated as young children shortly after the Second World War, the twins grew up unaware of each other’s existence, while sharing a deep interest in and empathy for the fragile lives of migratory birds. Visitors are invited to explore both sides of the shack where these interconnected stories are told through glass and mirrors engraved with bird silhouettes and the imprints of bird collisions. Also displayed are a mobile of paper birds cut out from Kurt’s collection of ornithology books, two illuminated globes with handmade strings tracing major global bird migration routes, and other belongings.
About the artist
Iris Häussler
Iris Häussler has a long history of exhibiting her installations in offsite and non-traditional museum spaces. Her first site-specific art installation was in the women’s restrooms at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1984. Since then, she has exhibited in basements, trailers, garages, apartments, churches, chapels, hotel-rooms, stores, industrial buildings, monasteries, and historic houses. Häussler is well known for her immersive installations that often revolve around fictitious personae and their artistic legacies.
Born in Germany and trained as a conceptual artist and sculptor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Häussler’s work has been exhibited internationally. She has been the recipient of the Kunstfonds, Bonn, and won the Karl Hofer Prize 1999, in Berlin. In 2010 she was invited on the Cape Farewell (UK) High Arctic Expedition. Since her immigration to Canada she has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Chalmers Arts Foundation, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.
Her work can be found in major national and international collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Städtische Sammlung im Lenbachhaus, Munich and the Goetz Collection, Munich, and in private collections worldwide.
Iris Häussler: Divided Heavens
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