The Dissection!

I was so nervous leading up to the Dissection, which was exactly what I expected.  You know when you build something up so much in your mind, that it gets a little blown out of proportion?  What I didn’t expect is that the nervousness would last all of two seconds- after Caterina introduced me, and I started talking, all my nervousness just disappeared.  All the sudden it was just me and my friends and colleagues- people who I know through school, my job, and generally, the art scene in Calgary.  Thank you all for coming- it made my performance, having so many familiar faces there.

Now that it’s done, I can tell you a little more about it.  I had been keeping my thoughts about it under wraps, as I didn’t want to give away too many details before hand.  It seems that the Morphoids use what is in their environments to create their insides… although I am still not sure how exactly that works.

Caterina Pizanias, the curator of The New Alberta Contemporaries, introduced me.  After I had given a bit of an introduction, we jumped right in.  The first cut was the worst, I’m sure you could hear it from the street below.

After this point, I forgot to be nervous.  We discovered what was inside the Morphoid, a lot of the contents looked familiar.  There was a Cheezies wrapper, a medication bottle holding fluid, and bits and pieces of all kinds of things.

We got an up-close and personal look at all aspects of this creature, even it’s underside, which contained three broken plastic forks, working as teeth.

I passed around most of the components I found inside the Morphoid, so that people could have a look for themselves.

I was impressed with the questions from the audience- there were a lot of smart and thoughtful questions, and everyone was happy to play along- no one tried to throw me off.  (Or if they did, I deflected their attempts!)

I was happy to be have the opportunity to do this dissection- it is an important step for my practice.  The Esker Foundation has been great in supporting this, and Megan, my main contact there, has been awesome. The audience was spectacular- just the right size, and full of people who support me and my work.   I am now quite relieved that it is over (as it was a year in the making!), so now I can focus on the next thing- my upcoming exhibition at the Art Gallery of Calgary!

(There will also be a video at some point in the future, so keep an eye out for that!)

Photos by Angelique Gillespie.