Apologia - a new body of work

Post- Stanley Cup, pre-Occupy, Apologia re-purposes texts taken directly from the raw plywood hoardings that covered Vancouver streets after the June 2011 riots. I've mimicked the gestures and faked the textures and colours of the original scripts and then re-mixed selected portions of the narrative scrawl into a fabricated tableaux of counterfeit relics; creating, in effect - a false 'Apology Wall'.

Lost in the crowd, amidst the spectacle's shameless sermonizing and almost self- congratulatory contrition are fragments of feeling that seem to point to a deeper and potentially meaningful, collective unrest. By re-contextualizing the 'real' wall's chastening catch-phrases, randomly inserting manipulated 'profile picture' images, and assigning imaginary authorship to impersonal confessions, I'm hoping to redeem the more plausible expressions of private regret, remind people of other civic events that bear witnessing, explore genuine acknowledgements of public dissent and perhaps, by reading between the lines, discover the catalysts for inciting a lasting and constructive civic conscience.

New Video Work

... a lone, masked figure takes a stand in a disrupted landscape... defining her place, creating the space to inhabit her own body, looking for ways to construct new meaning. Fighting for the right to stand alone, the hope to be included, the freedom to say no, the freedom to say yes, over here, out there, anywhere, everywhere; Independence...

From the synopsis for my latest video, Independence, now playing at festivals this month in Beirut, Riga and Budapest and also viewable online as part of CologneOFF Vll- http://coff.newmediafest.org/ If you have a few moments please have a look and let me know what you think, wherever you are.

Citizen George