Statement of Intent:
Tracing back through the past eight months of paintings, installations, and notes along with an ongoing online trail, I can compose a retroactive diary of my daily observation and interaction with the Downtown Eastside.
Rather than placing heavy focus on images or fine art – I will be focusing on words, stories, quotes, found objects and jotted notes. I will attempt to create a singular narrative through the working of dissonant pieces, stringing my work together, to make it one thing. Images will be presented visually to convey what is happening to the city, as a whole, through the eyes of a neighbor of the DTES. I will use my work as a reference point for a larger discussion of Vancouver; how what happens in the DTES is indicative of some of the larger concerns that surveillance poses for Vancouverites outside of the DTES.
This “diary” is essentially a portable wall one might find in a studio or living space; 8’ by 4’ on found wooden canvas. Sketched faces, overheard quotes, articles on the city itself, found objects and strong themes of colour will animate and illustrate my collected surveillance.
Technological surveillance is fast becoming a major issue in Vancouver. Residents are realizing that eyes, quite literally, are on our city and our daily business. The DTES is a microcosm of this form of development. It is a “troubled” area, that title allowing for severe and rash invasions of privacy. The possibility of a culture of surveillance is already a reality and this reality has real consequences for the people of the DTES and in a larger sense, the City of Vancouver itself. This project will attempt to understand the consequences of living under surveillance, and secondly, how this scrutiny affects the culture it observes.
Quotes, for instance, will be used as a humanized version of CCTV surveillance; they will look at the same things, at the same time, in the same places as conventional CCTV surveillance, only this experiment has occurred through an appreciative humanistic lens. In this case, the behavior captured is evidence of positive human traits, not the cynical repetition of everyday crime. This technique attempts to humanize the process of modern surveillance itself. Challenging the dispassionate honesty of conventional video surveillance with a biased, fallible human voice. The intent is to create a honest human account of our behavior, one that prioritizes beauty at the expense of cynicism and fear.
Artist Bio:
Sometimes cynical, sometimes frustrated, sometimes downright depressed about the one place in the city of Vancouver that needs a lot of love – and more than I can give as one person – I try to create things that invoke honesty and every once in a while, dark curiousity. See if people will go a step further and challenge themselves to discover what stories lie behind faces, places and things.
I am interested in seeing how far simple, positive human interaction can go in terms of brightening someone’s day, as naïve and childlike as that may sound. Sometimes we forget how naivete and childhood are not necessarily some of the worst qualities to encounter or express. In an age of technology where human interaction is threatened on a daily basis, we are slowly becoming desensitized to things that once made up our very cores; the act of writing or receiving a letter through the mail, smiling at strangers as you walk down the street, sitting down to dinner with your family, hearing someone’s voice on the other end of a telephone. My aim in my artistic practice as well as my personal life is always to challenge people and see if we still have it in us to “get back to basics”.
I have no formal education in the arts and you can usually find me in and around my studio at all hours of the day and night. I love face-to-face conversation, the way the sun rises and sets in the Hastings corridor and encouraging people to do what it is they really want to do. I am currently in love and believe it or not, found it just across the street. Another reason I stand by the fact that good things happen in places one least expects them to.
Supporting Illustrations:
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CURRENT AND ONGOING ONLINE PROJECTS
http://practicalevidence.tumblr.com
http://hellofagarden.tumblr.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandaleightheresa/
http://amandaleightheresa.blogspot.com/2009/05/ffffffffound-irl.html
http://amandaleightheresa.blogspot.com/2009/05/landscapes-real-adventures.html