Julie Hammond

Artist Statement: Fitting (Vancouver, September 2015)

Fitting (Vancouver, September 2015) is a documented performance attempt to find a place for a body in a city. Wearing anonymous work coveralls, I took on the job of situating myself within and in contrast to the city of Vancouver. This attempt to literally fit in to leftover and purpose-built natural places is an exploration of what it means to belong or make my self—physical and otherwise—part of the city. (Albeit, part of a part that is designed to be a certain kind of invisible.) With photographer Lukas Engelhardt, I created images that simultaneously highlight and obscure the shape of the body, reveal the site within the city (through distinguishing features, architecture, horizon), and make clear the shapes that the city demands of the body.

What does the terrain of the body need in order to fit the natural environment? How does this body relate to the terrains of the built environment? What does nature in the city mean when it is as sculpted as the towers above it? What does it mean when it is forgotten? In 1862, the American Theodore Winthrop wrote that the landscapes of the Pacific NW could create a new type of person, informed not by skyscrapers and creations of man, but by the majesty of towering cedars and snow-capped mountains. These towers of nature would, day in and day out, put human actions and thoughts into perspective. While the North Shore Mountains grace one of Vancouver’s horizons, they can seem secondary to the new skyline of glass towers and cranes, buildings made for inhabitants that don’t leave room for people. If the shapes around us shape us, as individuals and as a society, what does this new skyline mean for our present and our future?

Bio

Julie Hammond makes performances for stages and non-stages. Her work activates spaces with the performative, and investigates the idea and relationship between performance and audience, spectator and place. Since 2005 she has devised and performed in 12 productions with Hand2Mouth Theatre (Portland, OR), and toured to La MaMa (NYC), On the Boards (Seattle, WA), PICA's Time-Based Art Festival (Portland), San Francisco, Mexico City, Poland, and throughout rural Oregon. Her work has been supported by the Oregon Arts Commission and, with Hand2Mouth, through residencies at EMPAC, Caldera, and Playa. She is currently based in Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC where she is pursuing a MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at Simon Fraser University.

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