This is not a judgement of these processes. Mining is as natural to us as our Neolithic chipping tools from stone. However it is a reflection of the true weight of all materials around us in our manufactured world. What other “truths” lie invisibly in the land?
A set of stairs takes us to a vantage point for a different sort of vista. Using anaglyph stereo photography, the illusion is created of looking through the surface of the manufactured floor, to a collage on the boreal ground underneath it. Caribou antlers are intertwined with an industrial artifact, a reflection how below the surface of our manufactured world, our industrial nature is inextricably intertwined with other life.
Another panel is a heap of compressed scrap metal, the summary statement of impermanence of all things we create. How does the short lifespan of the objects we create and consume compare to the lifespan of our impact on the land?
The final stereo print creates the illusion of looking through the floor at a pregnant woman lying on the ground in the northern boreal forest. The irrefutable and delicate fecundity of the earth, ever more remote and invisible to us from the vantage point of our manufactured spaces.
True North, or Untrue North?
I am very grateful for the support offered by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Yukon Advanced Artists Award.