Survival/Salvation
— 2011
Shipwreck
balsa wood, plaster, acrylic, gold leaf, string (each 34 x 44 x 12 cm)
As part of an artist's residency with the Halifax Regional Municipality, I activated Point Pleasant Park and the Gatekeeper's Lodge with performances and installations from January to May 2011. The culminating project - an exhibition with Eyelevel Gallery in Halifax, was SURVIVAL/SALVATION. This show exhibited the projects I worked on while planning the performance events and occupying the Gatekeeper's Lodge in Point Pleasant Park.
The ubiquity of Rapture predictions, end-of-times placards, apocalypse theories, survivalist movements, disaster coverage and religious fanaticism is of concern.
Advice on the pursuit of endurance, be it corporeal or spiritual, often presents as a set of instructions, not unlike a performance script, providing directions for preparedness and preservation. The relation of language across these terms is where a connection can be drawn between survival and salvation; two fraternal ideas, alike and yet unique to one another. One the practical, tacit knowledge of trained action, the other a supplicant, spirit driven state of being, both finding place in wilfully repetitive labour.
To live, in spite of accident, ordeal or difficulty - is to survive. And yet salvation is born from similar acts: to be delivered from sin and its consequences, preserved from harm, ruin or loss, to be rescued or set free. Survival and salvation share an etymology, a root origin I am keen to expose.
During my 2011 residency in Point Pleasant Park, I laboured with these ideas and their language through the vehicle of planned and spontaneous public performances. Before the performances took shape, historical research was conducted and often drawings, photographs and objects were made. This exhibition is the fruit of that labour.
Location: 2011 | Eyelevel Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Survival/Salvation (gallery installation)
Survival/Salvation (gallery installation)
Survival/Salvation (gallery installation)
Statements (food fire shelter water) (detail)
Statements
Terrariums (detail)
glass, organic matter, vinyl, balsa wood (various dimensions)
Terrariums
glass, organic matter, vinyl, balsa wood (various dimensions)
Terrariums (detail)
glass, organic matter, vinyl, balsa wood (various dimensions)
Terrariums
glass, organic matter, vinyl, balsa wood (various dimensions)
Shipwreck
balsa wood, plaster, acrylic, gold leaf, string (each 34 x 44 x 12 cm)
One Week’s Hydration
mason jars, holy water, vinyl
set of 21 (each 10 x 10 x 18 cm)
S O S Kit
digital print, chipboard, nylon, knitted cap, matches, mirror, glass jar, water, sparklers (each 36 x 36 x 10 cm)
Fieldnotes
digital print, masonite, gold leaf (each 20 x 32 cm)
Chair Miniature (detail)
video still, 00:06:23. Footage from Survival Systems program, designed to train emergency first-responders to survive extreme disasters. Immersion documents and recontextualizes water submersion exercise performances, 2010.
Survival/Salvation: exhibition poster
Research + Development
In preparation for the Gatekeeper’s Lodge Residency, I did research within the Nova Scotia Museum and the Provincial Archives.
My residency was thematically focused on notions of survival; it was amazing to look over the settler history of the park as it changed and survived for over a century. The park holds strong ties to its colonial British history, the Gatekeeper’s Lodge itself is a sister building to and twin of the Gatehouse at Hughenden Manor, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK.
As I researched, spent time in the park, and developed work on site, I regularly shared my findings at The Gatekeeper’s Lodge blog.