BANFF CENTRE FOR THE ARTS RESIDENCY

Self-directed residency making work for shows next year at the Banff Centre for the Arts in beautiful Banff, Alberta, Canada. June 24-July 31, 2007.

http://www.banffcentre.com/va/

As a Self-Directed Creative Resident, I will build a series of sculptures based upon jungle warfare mechanisms.   These traps or man killers are hand built, using simple materials with additions of manufactured parts. Similar booby traps were used in the Vietnam War, like the Punji Sticks, which is a pit with sharpened sticks at the bottom and a camouflage covering on the top.   These sculptures will be made out of fabric, specifically camouflage material, and steel.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Major Alan 'Dutch' Schaeffer, used several of these mechanisms to escape/injure the alien, played by Kevin Peter Hall, in Predator .   I would like these sculptures to refer to the Hollywood jungle action movie as well as reference the current intriguing fashion of wearing camouflage in daily dress.   To wear camouflage is a statement, political and militant, while at the same time it suggests a hidden threat or watcher, a game or hunt.  

For this residency, I would like to research the history of the particular types of camouflage that coincide with the vegetation of the area of conflict and the kind of strategy involved in skirmishes.   I will use this research in creating my own camouflage fabric to build these sculptures.   In combination with the metal of the armatures and the handmade camouflage pattern, these soft sculptures will play war-games in their own patterned space, against each other and the audience of the work.

Click image for pdf version of this field manual.

Home (in)security exhibition at the other Gallery in Glyde Hall featuring the work of Brett Reif and Claire Rau.