Midst, video installation (wood, 80 fans, electronics, aeronautic honeycomb, fog machine, data projector), 2019

Video: 

Imagine that you see, not far off into the distance, a small patch of inexplicable fog rising. Large shadowy animals pass through this fog, visible momentarily. Bison that once would have been populous in this region seem to have temporarily reappeared. This is achieved through the installation of a custom-made fog screen that uses a data projector and fog machine to create a video projection of animated animals, which appear on a wall of fog.  The work creates a glimpse of animated woodland creatures passing through the fog.

Issues of encroachment of cities into wild space raise questions of animal rights. Do animals ‘own’ the wild spaces that they depend upon for life and sustenance? Within systems of property rights through capitalism, animals have no land rights. How does this new reality of the disposability of animals fit within the Canadian psyche, one in which “nature” predominates?

I grew up in rural Manitoba and spent two months of every year up north in the remote area of Nopiming Provincial Park. As a child I regularly encountered large animals including moose, deer, bobcats and the occasional cougar, as well as a huge variety of small animals. As an adult I continue to need a period of time each year in which I am immersed in unstructured wild spaces. This project springs from my desire to repopulate my current life in southern Ontario with the animals that once would have proliferated here. To brush up against animal encounters is an experience of majesty, intimacy, and humility. I strive for this project to instill a sense of wonder such as one can experience when safely encountering a large animal in the wild. I hope this project inspires a sense of our deep interconnectedness with the forces of nature.

How does a return of the animal-other transform public space in the experience of the viewer? As site-specific new media public art, new technologies are employed to destabilize the familiarity of public space. Midst questions our relationship to natural spaces, inviting our imaginations to repopulate those spaces. It prompts the viewer to engage in questions of embodied perception and the fluidity of lived experience.

My recent artworks deal with animals and can be seen as part of a contemporary movement that concerns itself with the animal self and animal other. How do we rethink what it is to be an animal beyond being another disposable body for the interests of advanced capitalism? How does a celebration of an animal shift the values of a global, technological world?

Created with the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council. Thank you!!