A Werner request.

I dug up the 'original' images (courtesy of Georgia Esporlas) from my photo utensil project in an email somewhere:

Then, Preview took it's own initiative, which I thought was kind of interesting...

I remember Sabine Bitter noting the most interesting part of the photograph was my right hand - looking at them now I agree.  These last images do the most justice to the piece, thus far.

Two Trees

During the spring and summer of 2005, myself and a team of five others (Raffi Mahseredjian, David Ediger, Sum Li, Robyn Prisland and Stephanie Hutton), spent an exorbitant amount of time and energy on this double curation project - Two Trees.  While developing part of the land on the mountain, SFU had cut down a few old growths, so decided to offer the wood to local wood artists to make pieces.  Their work would then be presented in two shows, one at the Pendulum Gallery downtown, and another on the Burnaby campus.  It was an obvious PR move on their part, but the only curating opportunity we, as students, had ever come across - so we jumped at the opportunity. 

The Pendulum Gallery was definitely a challenge to curate in, being a bank lobby and all.  They had these bizarre temporary walls, and only a few plinths, so we had to be really creative.  Plus there's the matter of a huge pendulum swinging in the space.  That coupled with the diversity of the 37 pieces we had, it was hours upon hours of preparation.

 
Everything from screens, to chairs, to tea sets, to music stands, to everything you could think of.  We even managed to hang a kayak from the ceiling.

But the Cornerstone space up on Burnaby Mountain was the definite challenge - a raw space with no walls or even lighting:

Raffi had the brilliant idea to build temporary walls, which we did - all 16 of them...

We also created plinths inside some of them with back lighting:

We installed temporary lighting to the ceiling and built a few basic plinths as well.  Many, many days later, here was the result:

Many thanks to all the 5 who helped, and also to Rachel Forbes, the Community Trust Planning Assistant, who put in innumerable hours for this entire project from beginning to end.

Assessment.

Myself and a friend at the time, Nariman Mousavi, were in a mixed undergrad/grad class in 2006.  It quickly became evident whose input was most frequent, most valued, and how crits were steered by this.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad people actually critiqued in an art class in Vancouver at all.

So we assessed everyone in the class based on a 4 point system and then hung that 'person' appropriately, in relation to where they would normally sit in our oval shape.  Then we installed a pulley system to hang it like a kind of adult mobile, and we liked the slight interaction it created.  Ultimately, it both infuriated and intrigued people at the same time, which was our main goal.

A very self-reflexive art school piece, but a necessary process nonetheless.

Video Still for You (2)

This was one of the first forays of the Behind Open Doors Arts Collective.  Chris O'Connor is here meditating on a book...

The daily grind.

Denise Oleksijczuk gave me this meat grinder (minus a handle) some time ago, which was left over from her 'Perennial Love' piece.  I've been carrying it around for a long time, and finally made a piece from it - a desk set.

I had a co-worker at the time who used to lift weights while he was on the phone:

The gloss made it too slippery...

This was another homage to a book and cover photograph that I have loved for a very long time: Brazen Femme. 

I had intended to make this a playful and fun project about womens' crotch references, but bowed under the pressure of my partner at the time who was a commercial photographer. Insistent this project be of the highest quality, I agreed to go along.

Unfortunately, this took the fun out of the end product, and I was the only one who thought holding different tools in front of my crotch was absolutely hilarious.  During the crit, I couldn't come up with a damn thing to say about the work, as could no one else.