Northern Studies (work in progress)
My current body of work, Northern Studies, consists of images taken in and around Churchill, Manitoba. Churchill sits on the western shore of Hudson Bay and is the Canadian Rail’s northernmost terminus. Besides the handful of ecotourists seeking to explore the self-proclaimed Polar Bear Capital of the World the town remains isolated from the rest of the world by the unshakeable reality of its latitude. So what draws me to this place?
In 1967, the Canadian Broadcast Company asked Glenn Gould to create a radio piece about Northern Canada to commemorate Canada’s centennial year. With this project, the famed pianist set out to make a radio documentary ruminating on what it means to live in Northern isolation. Gould called his documentary The Idea of North, and the ideas he expressed through it serve as a departure point—and continue to guide—my work.
In his radio piece, Gould experimented with counterpoint, overlapping the voices of his interviewees to explore the differing and often contradictory narratives that exist in the vastness of the North. I am shooting a handful of seemingly discrete subjects in and around Churchill (where Gould traveled to record much of his documentary in 1967)—Cold War-era military and research facilities, the tundra’s slow- growth spruce, ecotourists looking for polar bear, breast-fetish pornography unearthed at a genocidal First Nation relocation site, and the town of Churchill itself. When viewed scattered across gallery walls or pages of a book, the subjects become stand-ins for the narrators in Gould's work.
The images currently on the site are a small sample of the work as a whole. Each image represents one of the five subjects I have been shooting for the project. More images will be added when installation shots become available during the solo exhibition and premier of the work, in November 2010, at Franklin Artworks. www.franklinartworks.org/
In 1967, the Canadian Broadcast Company asked Glenn Gould to create a radio piece about Northern Canada to commemorate Canada’s centennial year. With this project, the famed pianist set out to make a radio documentary ruminating on what it means to live in Northern isolation. Gould called his documentary The Idea of North, and the ideas he expressed through it serve as a departure point—and continue to guide—my work.
In his radio piece, Gould experimented with counterpoint, overlapping the voices of his interviewees to explore the differing and often contradictory narratives that exist in the vastness of the North. I am shooting a handful of seemingly discrete subjects in and around Churchill (where Gould traveled to record much of his documentary in 1967)—Cold War-era military and research facilities, the tundra’s slow- growth spruce, ecotourists looking for polar bear, breast-fetish pornography unearthed at a genocidal First Nation relocation site, and the town of Churchill itself. When viewed scattered across gallery walls or pages of a book, the subjects become stand-ins for the narrators in Gould's work.
The images currently on the site are a small sample of the work as a whole. Each image represents one of the five subjects I have been shooting for the project. More images will be added when installation shots become available during the solo exhibition and premier of the work, in November 2010, at Franklin Artworks. www.franklinartworks.org/
