Alastair Heseltine's "Salix Iterum" willow sculpture, 'Touch Wood Sculpture Exhibition', VanDusen Gardens

Salix Iterum

 

Touch Wood Sculpture Exhibition at the VanDusen Gardens – June 20 – Sept 30, 2013.

Working on Master Weaver, Alastair Heseltine’s massive willow sculpture in the VanDusen Gardens was the highlight of my summer. 

Alastair’s sculpture was based on the Fibonacci Scale (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.), each new number being the addition of the previous 2 numbers.  We wove sections of willow according to these numbers that also link in with the idea of the mathematics found in nature through the Golden Ratio.  

Alastair Heseltine http://www.alastairheseltine.com/  and Ken Clarke  http://hungrythumbs.com/ were the core and key components for the heavier weaving and erecting of the sculpture.  Although I was in a volunteer capacity I was constant and consistent in my participation and eventually was able to instruct others in the weaving procedure.

Salix Iterum (Repeating Willow) is part of the ‘Touch Wood’ exhibition that ends on September 30^th but it will remain on site for 18 months, depending on how it survives the winter elements.  The eventual intention is for the sculpture to be composted back into the earth.

Ekphrasis - AddDress

http://ekphrasis.info/annmilligan

 AddDress

A dog-eared personal address book has instigated this investigation into my own memory. 

I decided to contact people from my ‘forgotten’ past despite a strong aversion to stirring up an uncomfortably, relevant or irrelevant nostalgia. I’ve compulsively kept these names and addresses for thirty years, or so.  Why?  Am I expecting some sort of elucidation?

I’m interested in the discordance of memory that creates a distrust, or a betrayal in the everyday experience. This ‘hard cover’ book is now outdated and has been virtually shape-shifted by a technology that will become just as obsolete, in the future past. We are a culture obsessed with the idea of remembering everything and dually fearful of not remembering anything at all.  How do memories create our identity and what happens when that identity starts to disintegrate? If we lose our memory will someone else be able to piece together our lives from what we have recorded, collected? Can we revisit a past that may never have happened and remember what can’t be remembered? Who will really care? Does a disturbance in the present that is delegated from the past not come with its own set of responsibilities and consequences?  Ones that can possibly even affect the future?

It is these relationships that are starting to be forgotten that intrigue me. I see these spaces of memory lapses as new entryways for alternative interpretations and investigations through attempting a reconstruction of the past through a present that has already become disassociated. 

sound, installation
March 26 -
April 6, 2013

Libro - The Liberation of the Book - January 2013

http://www.ecuad.ca/about/events/267545 



http://librotheliberationofthebook.tumblr.com/ 


If you find this book open, wrap it up into the plastic screen cover and fasten the suction button into the flat metal button hole.
Then open it again.         


If you find the book is closed, unbutton the suction cup through the flat metal button hole.

Open the hard cover of the book to reveal the metal spine coil and press ici to play happy birthday song. It may, or may not, be your birthday.

Flip pages of book and read in any order that makes sense to you.  If you find some loose pages you may put them in another order that makes more sense to you.  You may add things to this book, as well.
Can you find the two humming birds resting in these pages?  Please don’t disturb them if you do.


You may disturb other things in the book but don’t try to put anything away in your pockets.
This book is meant to be enjoyed by others, so leave its spine in place. 

It can be left open or closed but is best left unlocked for easy access.
Of the brain.

"Where are You?"

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This is video and performance installation about the effects of memory loss leading to dementia.  Inspired by my mother’s battle with dementia and my own fear of losing my memory this is a project that investigates the creative deterioration and dissociation experienced when one’s daily life starts to break down.  As my mother’s actual world became more foreign, she increasingly identified with the television set as the basis for her reality.  With sound and visuals I explore and combine the every day worlds of both my mother’s, and myself mashing chronological time into other order. Despite the confusion and disintegration another resonance is apparent.  Like the river I grew up on there is a consistency that stills the disconnectedness.

One November winter day, in 2010, I came home exhausted and saw the chaos of dishes in my kitchen sink as reflective of my state of mind.  I was curious to see what correlations I could find with my mother's, through the disintegration of her everyday life caused by the onslaught of dementia.  Her only solace appeared to be with the river that ran behind our house.  Every day for a year I took photos of my kitchen sink, which I then overlayed with all of the different bodies of water (the river I grew up on, as well as other rivers and the ocean) that I have lived on, or near to,  from the west coast to the east.

I can't Remember

Installations of woodblock prints inspired by MRI brain scans.

Brain Books

Losing one’s memory is a scary thought.  To witness someone close to you with dementia or Alzheimer’s is very disturbing.  Many of us fear losing our memory whether we have a family history of dementia, or not.  For most of us this fear is ungrounded.   We are horrified to imagine what it would be like to no longer recognize those we love and all that is familiar in our lives.  Memories give our life value and are a source of reference.  Having dementia is like tearing out, throwing away and mixing up this reference source.

Through acknowledging and exploring the issues that hold us in fear we often overcome the fear, itself.   I would like to explore the idea of dementia without the terror it conjures up.  Can we approach dementia as another way of relating to the world by delving into the unthinkable?

Remembrances and connections have been made by creative healing techniques in dementia care. Sometimes a relevant life event can be recalled by stimulating the senses through certain odors, sounds and visuals.

This is a series of three books that will explore the visual aspect of the brain and memory decomposition and a redefining of the dementia, memory loss experience. I also want to stimulate other ways of thinking about how we process and search for the familiar even in deconstructive, unfamiliar states.

The Chain Link Divide

The Chain Link Divide

I’ve been fascinated by the controversy involving the active opening and closing of the chain link fence on the railway, close to where I live in Montreal.  This crossing had been generously left open for 30 years or more until the summer of 2009 when suddenly and unexpectedly the CPR blocked the community’s “short cut” across the tracks.  There was no explanation and no warning.  Overnight there was no longer access.

Hundreds of people use this crossing regularly; it is direct and safe and also connects to one of the best bike paths that cross the city west to east.  No sooner had the opening(s) been closed than someone had clipped the fencing open again. It was then sealed shut again with more reinforced strategically placed steel pipes.  Still the <cutters> found their way through a section of the fence again, and this <war> has continued on like this for over a year now.  It was left open for the summer but now another critical section has been reinforced shut.  The CPR has also been fining people and a petition has been started www.PetitionOnline.com/ouvert02/, as of Oct 14^th 2010, 792 people have signed it.

This inspired me to do my own form of chain link fencing and to place it strategically in a passageway that people would not expect to be obstructed.  However, there will be a way through my digital and intaglio printed fencing without having to use metal cutters. I want to create a dialogue with the Concordia community, how do we react when previously accessible areas appear not to be so.  When do we still try to find a way through and when do we turn back, angry and discouraged. 

Our society is surrounded by chain link fences, keeping people in, keeping people out, containing areas of land, buildings, etc.  Do we ever consider why this protection is so necessary? Chain link fencing, dating back to the late 1800’s,[1] has now become so innocuously prevalent in our society that we seldom consider its relevance anymore. This is an opportunity to do so.

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[1] Anchor Fence Co., Inc. – History. Anchor Post Fence Co. was the first to manufacture and install chain link fencing in the USA in 1891. Web 14 Oct 2010.