We are a social species yet technology and urban development are driving us apart and leaving us feeling lonely and disconnected. Amid this trajectory of weakened human connection can artist-driven actions disrupt the everyday and help us reconnect with each other within the physical world?
More than forty years ago, French philosopher Felix Guattari said, “microscopic attempts of the community…play an absolutely crucial role,” this thinking is the impetus behind my projects which are often modest and set within my local community. My recent experiments in relational art explore methods and tools for social engagement and meaningful connection. I work with small numbers of the public and create spaces for chance or planned encounters where conversation and connection can occur. I often employ low-tech tools, materials, and techniques that are accessible and familiar but I am most preoccupied with the immaterial aspect of my projects—the creation of feelings, desires, and memories.
(Relational art: In Relational Aesthetics (2002), curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud defines this as “a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than independent and private space.”)
BIOGRAPHY
I am an interdisciplinary artist working with interventions, textiles, printed matter, and participatory installations. I graduated in Fine Arts (92) at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. My current work attempts to disrupt the everyday and to make connections with the public through planned and chance encounters. I have shown work in Vancouver at community galleries and artist run centres and most recently in Nova Scotia. Several of my projects have also occurred in the public space unaffiliated to a gallery or institution. I am currently working on a new body of textile-based work investigating the possibility of disruption within the craft of embroidery to explore the potential of the materials and techniques from a non-gendered lens.