Pages of the Skies ... 2020-2023 oversized foil stamped clamshell portfolio of inkjet prints.
Statement
Pages of the Skies (2021-2023), began with acknowledging my identity and place in the world as a descendant of British colonizers now living in the land of the Mi'Kimaq people in Eastern Canada. The history of evolving technologies beginning with the invention of printed texts, shaped human experience. By mining colonial archives dating to 1802 I am exposing and exploiting the mind field of printed documents that proliferated knowledge and brought about the industrial age.
By excavating historical records and making these layered palimpsests, the compositions can open up to new discourse. The exposed and composed images are reintroduced, folded, or mashed into the current digital context, against the phenomenal presence of natural forces and implicating the mistrust of scientific truth.
If one thinks of printed images as recordings to be replayed through analog and electronic media, or fragments of the problematic past outside of the collective self, then the books and archives I use represent the terroir of power through ideological (colonizer) identity. These pages, have been dislodged from their original source in 46 Rees Cyclopedia volumes(1802-1820)and are set against the skies that were pivotal in aiding the colonial voyageurs.
Pages of the Skies..., an oversized foil stamped clamshell portfolio of inkjet prints.
On view in the exhibition Anthem: 15 Expressions of Canadian Identity, first exhibited in 2021 online at the Canadian Language Museum website, with plans for a F2F exhibition at CLM in 2023.
16 works in the suite were mounted (as above) on poly-core aluminium for the exhibition PrTOtype(s) at the 2021 Krakow Biennial in a special Exhibition of Canadian Contemporary Experimental Printmaking. The full portfolio will be on view at the Library of Alexandrina, in Alexandria Egypt in summer 2022.
The exhibition began as a collaboration between Derek Besant, and Elaine Gold and her team at CLM. Participating artists include, Libby Hague, Yael Brotman, Sean Caulfied, Liz Ingram and Bernd Hildebrand, Tanya Harnett, Jewel Shaw, Davida Kidd, Walter Jule, Karen Dugas, Tracy Templeton, Joanne Lanneville, Alexandra Haeseker and Derek Beseant