#35. 2020-21. Virtual transmediation of beadwork, sugarbush, and audio recording. Installation view, AbTec Gallery, AbTec Island, Second Life. Physical work #35 in the collection of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, purchased with the support of the Elizabeth L. Gordon Art Program, a program of the Gordon Foundation and administrated by the Ontario Arts Foundation.
#35 (2020-21) is a virtual transmediation of the physical beadwork #35 (2015). The physical work is in the permanent collection of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, purchased with the support of the Elizabeth L. Gordon Art Program, a program of the Gordon Foundation and administrated by the Ontario Arts Foundation.
The physical beadwork was planned to be shown in the exhibition ‘A Thread That Never Breaks”, curated by Lisa Myers and Sage Paul. The physical exhibition was scheduled to open at the Harbourfront Centre during Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto 2020, but it was canceled due to COVID-19. Paul and Myers approached Skawennati and the AbTec team about taking the exhibition online and they offered to host the exhibition on their island in Second Life. These images are snapshots taken in the AbTec Gallery on AbTec Island.
This work is indebted to the AbTec team who taught me how to build and script within Second Life, and to Sage Paul and Lisa Myers who pursued the exhibition in the face of extenuating circumstances.
The physical work #35 is comprised of two pieces: one large hanging made of thousands of seed beads and nylon thread, and the other a small steel frame loom with a small beadwork on the floor. The beadworks are transparent and play on subtle differences in bead finish, resulting in a pattern which is only visible from certain angles. In the virtual gallery the possibilities are expanded. The work is scripted to change when an avatar is in proximity. The bead hanging glows a pattern. The frame loom becomes a maple tree in sugar season with an audio recording of sap dripping at my home sugarbush. These threads that never break connect us to our homelands, even when we cannot physically be there.