(In collaboration with Holly Ward)
2015
Dibond, vinyl, Velcro, wood, hardware, lens, Plexiglas, silver gelatin prints
sculptures: 13’ × 8’ × 6’
silver-gelatin prints: 18 x 24”
Eye of the Beholder is a collaboration between Holly Ward and myself for the Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Festival (Dawson City, 2015). The festival was a SSHRC-funded research project led by Donald Lawrence of Thompson Rivers University. For this project, we created two identical sculptural camera obscuras in the form of pyrite geodes (a.k.a. “fool’s gold”), which visitors were invited to enter to view the inverted landscapes in front. We also used them as on-site darkrooms to produce silver-gelatin prints of the images projected inside.
Each camera was positioned to view a distinct gravel-covered landscape: the first being the Moosehide Slide — a naturally occurring geologic landslide that the local Indigenous peoples (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in) saw as a portentous sign — and the other being the Dome Road dredge pile, a massive coil of gravel unearthed by industrial gold-mining processes, a man-made geology for which the area is well known.
This project sought to offer interactive engagements with distinct geologic and cultural significances of gravel in order to localize questions around resource extraction and representations of the “natural.” This project has been exhibited at the Kamloops Art Gallery, the Yukon Arts Centre, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, and McMaster University’s Museum of Art.
Catalogues were produced by and are available through the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery
Each camera was positioned to view a distinct gravel-covered landscape: the first being the Moosehide Slide — a naturally occurring geologic landslide that the local Indigenous peoples (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in) saw as a portentous sign — and the other being the Dome Road dredge pile, a massive coil of gravel unearthed by industrial gold-mining processes, a man-made geology for which the area is well known.
This project sought to offer interactive engagements with distinct geologic and cultural significances of gravel in order to localize questions around resource extraction and representations of the “natural.” This project has been exhibited at the Kamloops Art Gallery, the Yukon Arts Centre, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, and McMaster University’s Museum of Art.
Catalogues were produced by and are available through the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery
The moosehide slide Eye of the Beholder sculpture and related silver-gelatin print.
The dredge pile Eye of the Beholder
sculpture and related silver-gelatin print