Ice Follies 2016
February 13th - 27th, 2016
THEME: OJICHAAGOBIISHIN (IT REFLECTS IN WATER)
A call to action for other groups to engage the festival by responding to water as the source of all life on earth. With the imminent threat of land development and pipelines looming over Canada, both Aboriginal Territories and Municipalities turn their attention towards “Life”. Without the fresh water sources such as Nipissing nothing can survive. “Ojichaagobiishin” forces us to reflect on water and look at what we see. Looking in water reflects our own image back forcing us to look at ourselves. In order for the world we live in to change towards a safer, healthier place, we have to change ourselves.
Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garret, Deep Dark: Crossing, 2016
Presented by Near North Mobile Media Lab
The Deep Dark is a series of site-specific light installations intended to illuminate the interspaces between our sacred (and natural) environments and cultural constructs of darkness. Initially developed as an experimental intervention in the midnight forest surrounding The Banff Centre, the artists propose developing a second edition of The Deep Dark series for Ice Follies, subtitled Crossing. Aesthetically, this installation will elaborate on earlier designs, taking the form of a sequence of mono-directional light gateways and audio interludes, drawing viewers out onto the frozen landscape of Lake Nipissing in North Bay, guided by voices in the ice. Comprised of speakers and mirrored doorways lined in bright LED strip lights, during the day each gate will reflect the snowy landscape, throwing reflections from the sun across the ice. As the sun sets, the doorways will illuminate, transforming into a hallway of brilliant thresholds. In scale, each gate will directly correspond to the average measurements of a North American household doorframe, emphasizing the disconnect between the unfathomably massive size of nature, and the relative smallness of human spaces.
Meditative, iconic, and evocative, Crossing will invite each viewer to participate in a 1500 ft solo night hike across the frozen lake, alone in communion with the water, voices in the ice, and their own thoughts. As viewers pass through the nighttime gates, the brightness of the passage will temporarily overwhelm their vision, night-blinding them. The installation imposes artificial light into the wild darkness, emphasizing the deep dark of the surrounding landscape – light by which the darkness grows darker and disillusions the night.
Artist Bio:
Caitlind R.C. Brown & Wayne Garrett (Calgary, Canada) work with diverse mediums and materials, ranging from artificial light to re-appropriated architectural debris. Their practice combines divergent aesthetic and industrial backgrounds, often resulting in transformative public sculptures and installations. Beckoning viewers with interactive contexts and novel materials, their projects invite strangers to share in experiential moments, prompting collaborative viewership. Using mass-produced objects as a reference to cities as an immeasurable mass of materials, people, and situations, Brown & Garrett’s practice evokes the possibility of renewed understanding through a critical shift in perspective.
Previous works have appeared at festivals, galleries, and museums internationally, including: Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow, Russia), Pera Museum (Istanbul, Turkey), Whanki Museum (Seoul, South Korea), Illingworth Kerr Gallery (Calgary, Canada), I Light Marina Bay (Singapore), GLOW Forum of Light + Architecture (Eindhoven, Netherlands), and elsewhere. Their sculpture, CLOUD, was short-listed for an Innovation by Design Award in 2013 by Fast Company (NYC).
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