The Boundary Layer: Between Earth and Sky
Lara Almarcegui Ruins in the Netherlands XIX–XXI Century 2008 Detail Courtesy of the artist
Curator Catherine Dean defines the “boundary layer” as the shallow plane of lived existence where the earth meets the sky. Appropriately, the related exhibition she organized for the Prairie Art Gallery considered the past, present and future transformation of this narrow band of space at the hands of humankind.
There was an undeniably post-apocalyptic tone involved, one that was reinforced in the selection of both the works and their exhibition sites. The ruins of the former PAG building, whose roof collapsed in 2007, served as the perfect backdrop for a piece of T&T “carchitecture.” Two defunct vehicles were piled one atop the other, their windows covered with wood siding. Topped off by a whimsical birdhouse, the proposed dwelling suggested a lighthearted take on survivalist living.
T&T (Tony Romano & Tyler Brett) The Birdhouse 2009 Installation view / photo Catherine Dean
The second exhibition site was a vacant church downtown. Here, the intensity of Chris Marker’s 1962 post-apocalyptic romance La Jetée was heightened by the eeriness of a darkened stage where the altar once stood. Similarly, the bare concrete floor, devoid of pews, amplified the chill of Patrick Bernatchez’s I Feel Cold Today. Lara Almarcegui’s series of small photographs Ruins in the Netherlands XIX–XXI Century echoed the remains of the PAG’s original building. Finally, Heather and Ivan Morison’s Starmaker transformed a series of banal photographs from around the world into a slide show for alien eyes. Accompanied by a blaring sci-fi soundtrack, the projection instilled in the viewer equal levels of anxiety and alienation while transforming cliché images of tulip fields and wildlife into something novel.
Harry Rowed Female Worker Handles Asbestos Fluff at the Johns-Manville Factory, Asbestos, Quebec 1944 Courtesy the artist, the National Film Board of Canada and Library and Archives Canada
At the PAG’s (stunning) new exhibition space, Dean’s arrangement of historical photographs from public-archive collections riffed on both Starmaker and La Jetée, taking us on a wild ride through time and space to reveal a complex cycle of technological innovation and resource extraction, bliss and destruction.
Just as site played a key role in the overall success of the exhibition, the presentation of this project in Grande Prairie was no less important. Best known for dirty oil and clear-cut forestry, northern Alberta wrestles constantly with the management of a resource-based economy and the ethics of giving the world the energy that it wants. Appropriately, “The Boundary Layer” didn’t rely on oversimplified dichotomies (man versus nature, economy versus ecology) to preach at its audience. Instead, it revelled in the humour, horror, absurdity and complexity of humankind’s every endeavour.
Heather & Ivan Morison Starmaker 2005 Video still Courtesy of the artists and Clint Roenisch Gallery
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