PASSAGES
How do our cities and urban environments affect how we think, feel, and behave? This question guided me during my one month residency in Montreal in Fall 2019. To explore the concept that cities and people are systems which continually interact with each other, I walked through Montreal’s neighbourhoods with my camera to absorb and process the people and places I saw. I best observed the interplay between people and public space on the Metro transit system as they navigated their days. These locations also tied into my ongoing interests in transitional spaces and change.
Post residency, I began to investigate the concept of embodied cognition: how we perceive the world around us with all of our senses, as well as through movement, and how we process that information, both consciously and nonconsciously. This concept resonated with me and informed a way to express what I had perceived and felt as I absorbed the city.
Back in Ottawa, I worked with a combination of analog and digital processes: I made ink drawings on sheets of polyester film and digitally combined these with photographic images. This effectively added a layer of light, shadow and texture with the goal of integrated, expressive and intensified images. I then produced monoprints on matte polyester film using an acrylic medium transfer process, resulting in transparent images on translucent film. I enjoyed the push and pull between control of the process and surrender to the imperfections that inevitably happen. These marks are integral to the work and, combined with the transparency of the work, contribute to a sense of transience and ambiguity.
This second phase of the project carried through the first several weeks of the pandemic in 2020. I found it eerie to be immersed in my images, shot months earlier, of places that were now mostly empty. There was a sharp contrast between the photos of groups of people and those of solitary individuals. I felt this juxtaposition spoke to exactly where we were in those early weeks of the pandemic shutdown, often on our own and isolated.
When functioning at their best, cities are places to connect and engage. They encourage us to interact with one another, engage with the spaces that we inhabit and to become enriched by them. In the city, we can enjoy feeling a part of a bigger, vibrant whole.
Disconnection from others seems to lay underneath many of the issues we face today. We risk becoming insular and out of touch with each other when our urban neighbourhoods are designed to be enclaves for people like ourselves instead of seeking out, encouraging, and experiencing diversity. We risk losing touch with the natural world if we do not place a high value on accessible green spaces, water, and public parks. It is fundamental that our cities foster connection and engagement, not disconnection and alienation.
We are living in an in-between state, a passage, a time of transition and uncertainty. In the midst of upheaval, can we reimagine our cities through fresh eyes?
Passages was presented in a solo exhibition at Studio Sixty Six, July/August, 2020.
