The Ecology of Narrative Space * Rails End Gallery Haliburton ON Solo

The title of this exhibition, Ecology of Narative Space, refers to the intersection of personal and public experiences and our filtered perceptual memories that affects identity in the present. The exhibition shows twenty-four photomontage prints from the series titled, Arctic Crisis Project, Parts 1 & 2, and the installation created on-site titled, Water Leak. The installation Water Leak involves an aerial video projection of rushing glacier waters into an oil/juice drum with a profile similar to those seen in the Arctic Crisis photomontage images. The overflow of the projection appears to be leaking from the bottom of the can that is positioned on the bed of the baggage scale that is fixed in this converted railway station. Visitor action is engaged to look into the intimate space of the can to see contained video images of rushing glacier water, a reference to the intersection of personal and public global narratives.

Inspirations: In my view, art is biographical or self referential to the Artist. Inspirations for this body of work are an interwoven layering of in-and-out filtered personal memories of perceived experiences. These span a life time that absorbs and naturally appropriates while reinventing personal meaning and identity in the present. Just as in these inter woven and ever-shifting filtered memories, no one element of the photomontage images, Arctic, New York City or journals, or those of the video projection installation, are the narrative. Further, one’s identity is not about any one element, geo political or cultural memory, rather it is the simultaneity of their interwoven narrative threads where the ever shifting present affects in-and-out personal and public consciousness. As in the existentialist perspective, “the whole is greater than the sum of parts”.