mother / mountain / ghost was accepted in the peer reviewed anthology, Performing Motherhood, edited by Amber Kinser, Kryn Freehling-Burton and Terri Hawkes, published by York University, Demeter Press, 2014. An excerpt from the chapter I wrote about the performance and photograph above states, “In direct response to this residency experience, but more generally as I unraveled the identity of mother, I stood in front of a mountain with a sheet over myself and my daughter (to be a mother and to be a mountain and to be a ghost). The performance underlines existence and erasure, with the idea that doubling of known and unknown creates a space for something yet unnamed. My claiming multiple identities (mother mountain ghost) while performing their disappearance is informed by Peggy Phelan’s idea of performance. She states, ‘Performance’s being….becomes itself through disappearance (146).’ The disappearance in this case is not only of the moment the image was taken, but also the laboured and futile attempt at hiding the figure of mother and child underneath a sheet. We do not blend into mountain; we do not become ghost; we are not discernible entirely as mother and child. The stated attempt to erase through performative action, as well as the inherent fleeting nature of photography, creates a space of disappearance synonymous with the creation of an unknown.”
Memory Translation Machine
Memory Translation Machine further investigates the role of performance in photography.
In this body of work I have taken one memory submitted by a woman in Columbus, and then slept directly on thememory and a roll of color film. After a nights sleep the color film is processed, scanned, printed and matched with portions of the memory.
you are my favorite photograph
you are my favorite photograph explores the body and photograph relationship, as first articulated through spiritual photography in the late 19th and early 20th century. The practice of spiritual photography was initially conceived as a way for people to speak with the dead, but in my case, I re-enacted the physical translation of memory and photographic object in a contemporary context. I developed a practice of collecting written memories from people of their favorite images. I then proceeded to ritualistically sleep on photo paper laid on top of the written description. When I woke in the morning I moved the exposed paper from under the sheet to light tight containers. These documents were then developed, revealing various degrees of light that touched the photo paper over the course of the night. The wrinkles and creases became part of the work, as well as the variations in exposure.The work is presented as an unframed grid, allowing the viewer to see the marks of the body and passage of time. The lightbox you are my favorite photograph was displayed as a glowing embodiment of the interface between body and photograph.
Link to video of me sleeping on/exposing photo paper and memory at Herndon Gallery, Antioch College, August 2012.
Show presented at Denison University (2010), Herndon Gallery, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio (2012).
Catalogue associated with the show If Becoming This at Antioch College with essays by Cyndi Conn, Stephen Horne and Angela Belt Farris.
Songs of Innocence and Experience
Dedicated to my daughter.
Sung entirely in French.
this is only one of the possible redemptions
this is only one of the possible redemptions creates a new mythology which offers a raw, homemade poetry of image, light and text. The works adhere to a vaguely recognizable, yet indiscernible, logic of place. I use self portraiture to speak to the autonomy of personal voice as creator of the image, and also to situate the work in reference to artists who have used self portraiture as a way of critiquing, and offering alternatives, to often limited depictions of individuality, gender and environment. By placing myself in various environments I both assert and erase a new past/present hypothesis of person and place.
In a humorously crude and grandiose style I offer large scale lightboxes which are lyrical meditations on what it is to be an artist, to belong to a place, and articulate presence. Using four lightboxes and four panels of illuminated text, I explore the potential of light for its relationship to the filmic image, as a carrier of commercial messages and the potential of a glowing image to transfix. this is only one of the possible redemptions speaks to the tenuous nature of human existence and how we forge identity in the world.
I promise to make art that is forever magic
Missed Connections
Missed Connections takes portions from the South Bend, Indiana craigslist 'missed connections' and places them on tree plaques which were installed on the Saint Mary's College campus in October 2008. This piece was curated into a show put together by Paddy Johnson of artfagcity and commissioned by Eyebeam's Addart project. You will need to install the firefox add on, and then your online ads will be replaced by artwork.
Aoteoroa or The long white cloud
Magique moi
A short video which muses on ideas of magic and eternity. Sung entirely in French.
flight 2004...2008
flight (2005-7) is a series of images which explore the desire and futility of my attempts to lift from the earth. Yolanda Monroy assisted with many of these images.
Have Your Photo Taken with a Canadian Holding the Last of the Canadian Snow
Have Your Photo Taken with a Canadian Holding the Last of the Canadian Snow, roadside attraction, Madrid, New Mexico 2007.
Launch of the Erg
Commissioned for the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, the 'Launch of the Erg' took as its inspiration a thrice sunk ship, the Erg, in Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia. Reconstruction of a model of the boat, and a floating of the model with weather balloons served to raise the Erg once more, this time into the skies of the New Mexico desert. (2007)
The performance for the 'Launch of the Erg' is on the Museum of Fine Arts website, click here to view. (Flash 8.0 or higher necessary to view)
26 Versions of Nova Scotia
The westray mining disaster occurred in 1992, when I was 16 years old. 26 miners died. In New Mexico I made 26 versions of Nova Scotia, as sewn from memory. Tracing paper and thread, 2005-6.
Je suis la reine
Sung entirely in French.
Free Mending Service
The mending projects began in 2002-5, with mending broken parts of moths that had been ordered and broken in transit between Nova Scotia and New Mexico.
The Free Mending Service followed, which was advertised in local papers, and with business cards, 2004-5.