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animals in the room
Please join me in celebrating the closing reception of my solo exhibition, Animals in the Room, on Thursday, September 1st from 6-9pm at ESP Gallery (1086 1/2 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON). The exhibition runs from Wednesday, August 24th until Sunday, September 4th (gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday 12-6, Sunday 1-5).
Animals in the Room is about how we cultivate self-knowledge and connection across the barriers of our species. It is an inquiry into the removal of these barriers and the absence of division.
Essential to the process of Animals in the Room is to create limits that are limitless, invisible, and irrelevant. This project adopts an overarching conceptual thread of posi-postmodernism: posi-postmodernism is a strategy for the everyday, a theoretical and a conceptual approach, a negotiation, an acknowledgment.
In When Species Meet, Donna Haraway begins with the question “how is ‘becoming with’ a practice of becoming worldly?” (2008: 3). “Becoming with” is the meeting of humans and animals and the resultant reaction on a physical, emotional and phenomenal level. This experience of “becoming with” points to a shift in the way we, as humans, can understand our own humanness – or, meaning that each connection with an animal results in a shift in the biological and phenomenal make-up of our species. Animals in the Room consists of images and text that capture “becoming with” as process and experiment.
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five states in one day.
We started in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and drove through Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and ended in Hammond, Indiana (just across the border from Chicago). I think we peaked after the Badlands in terms of interesting landscape - this is farm country and looks like rural Ontario (which is lovely - but it looks like home). Of note, there was a very kind lady in Iowa that I spoke to, and generally very nice people and courteous drivers. We’re hitting some road work and traffic lately, which makes me feel sad on the inside because I’m already SO TIRED.
Almost home.
Iowa. This is what I pictured in my mind of what Iowa would be, exactly just this.
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.s.o.u.t.h….d.a.k.o.t.a.
Today we drove through South Dakota, from Rapid City to Sioux Falls with some short detours through Scenic (for sale!), the Badlands, and Cactus Flat. Here’s a photo essay of the day.
Foxy.
Bad Badlands. So badass.
Dudes on four wheelers. Looks super fun.
In the Badlands National Park.
In Cactus Flat these little turds were having a nap until I fed them some yummy peanuts.
Prairie dog loves.
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- nevada - utah - wyoming - south dakota -
This trip back home is much more intense than the trip down to Los Angeles. We’re on the road by 7a and kicking it for the whole day. From Reno we drove through Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah, and today drove through Utah, Wyoming, and ended up in Rapid City, South Dakota. Big plans for tomorrow. A surprise, and a secret. Most of these photos are landscape because it’s so beautiful, and I’m a little tired now so forgive the lack of narrative.
Good morning, Nevada.
These are some hot springs.
Do Not Pick Up Hitchhiker.
All of the sudden, where Nevada and Utah meet - there is a white, salty desert. We did a little internet research and I still don’t really understand how this happened. Utah, also, is just lovely.
Ang got annoying so I sent her packing into the desert.
After Ang left, I almost slipped and fell in this. Pink, and salty.
Then she came back.
A mirage?
Is this normal? There appears to be a fence under this water.
Near the city centre of Salt Lake City. We were staying close to here, and I had a really nice impression of the city. It was ‘established’ by a Mormon leader - they were looking to get away from religious persecution and violence and this guy had a dream in which SLC appeared - so when he and his caravan came to this place he said “This is the place”. Now, the population is less than 50% Mormon, but the influence is strong, and there are plaques and memorials all around.
Both ways. LOOK BOTH WAYS.
I have decided to move to Utah and become a dog portraitist. I have reason to believe there is a market for this.
Who’s this pretty lady? Hard to catch this on camera.
Utah countryside.
Expansive!
Camera trickery. It’s the same all around. This is in Wyoming. Also - we didn’t spend much time not driving, but the gas stations we stopped at had some pretty un-welcoming vibes. Dear Wyoming: I’m not trying to change you, influence your politics, or assert my difference. I just want to buy some gas from you, and maybe a cold beverage.
Otherwise, the landscape was AMAZING.
Elk? Deer? We saw herds (more than a hand full - 20?) of both of these beauties. And a fox! She was sitting, anticipating something to hunt right beside the road. Good animal sightings today, it was a real treat.
Summer home.
No biggie.
In tribute.
In other news: Shark Week is this week.
Tomorrow we pass a leisurely day in South Dakota. We’re aiming to be in Ontario by Friday. I miss my kitty.
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- on the road again -
So much has happened in only one week.
I’m writing this from Reno, Nevada. Angela and I are now heading in an easterly direction.
We left LA early Saturday afternoon and arrived in San Francisco that night. I wanted to take the 101 because it’s along the coast, and it was a beautiful drive. Totally worth adding an extra two hours of driving.
“Water!”
These bells were all along the 101-N from LA to SF - what are they for?
This morning we kicked it around SanFran a bit. I can see myself living here. It doesn’t feel like LA at all, the word I want to use is “reasonable”. SF seems reasonable.
This is Lombard Street. It has 8 tight hairpin turns, and many many tourists on the road.
Alcatraz, over a distance.
The Golden Gate bridge. It was pretty chilly in SF this morning, and gloomy.
Of course, before we left SF we went to Trader Joe’s to stock up on some snacks and then headed out to Reno. We originally planned to go further north up the coast to Portland - but we’re on a bit of a schedule and that might be another trip. No redwoods either, sad.
But - SF to Reno - what an incredible drive. Everything is a pleasant surprise. Mountains, lakes, barren desert. More mountains! Reno’s neat, it’s really flat so you can see lots of sprawl, the city is flashy and kitsch, lots and lots of casinos, adult clubs, places to get drunk. Nevada = morally ambiguous. It’s windy here too.
Then this happened on the trip - from cold (17 degrees) and gloomy to hot (up to 34 degrees) and sunny.
Coal mining? Lake Tahoe? Bears? Snow? (Not actually, although I think there were some white caps in these mountains). And this was all still in California.
Tomorrow is a drive across the desert to Salt Lake City, Utah. I am looking forward to this one. I love the desert.
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venice beach / griffith park hike
This past weekend my friend Nicole came to LA for her work and we were lucky to have a few days to kick around the city. Highlights included Venice Beach and a hike up to the Griffith Park Observatory, and beyond. The hike was nice, not too tough, and it was a good, sweaty day. I saw a amazing tree squirrel, and other wildlife like little dogs being carried up to the top of the hike. And a hummingbird. So cute!
Jeff was an excellent host and representative of LA for the weekend. We also went to karaoke at Little Bar last night - and Rodrigo’s back. What a great weekend. Tomorrow I move out of my LA apartment, and this weekend will start the drive back to Toronto with my sister Angela.
Also, someone please buy my LA bike.
This is Muscle Beach. It is real. Those men are really just standing around. They are sort of like animals in a zoo, or a human curiosity.
This is some good grass.
Hike, Hollywood sign and general confusion.
Hilarity ensued.
The observatory.
The view from the top.
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Just in case there was any confusion about how glamorous living in LA is.
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USC / I’m not making this up.
When I first arrived at USC I laughed out loud a lot because it’s really, really beautiful / impressive. I know that it is referred to as the “University of Spoiled Children”, which I think I don’t see too much of because I’m here during the summer and there’s not too many people around or things happening, but there are nice things, good-looking people and fraternities around. What follows is a short photo essay, I cruised around the campus today on my bike. At first I was planning to take only photos of all the fountains (there are so many - I think Los Angeles in general is a bit overwhelmed by fountains) - but anyway, that got boring, so this is a general idea of the campus and some of the places I spent some time in.
This is one of my favourite libraries to hang out in, where the New York Reference Library is (where some of Felicity was filmed).
The Philosophy library is a beautiful old building, it has a bit of a chapel / religious feel. Really dark and quiet. The times that I went there were no other people in the library.
This grassy knoll was one of my favourite lounging spots. Butterflies and birds. It was usually pretty quiet.
School of Cinematic Arts - George Lucas designed this building and it is confusing. My supervisor’s office is in this building and it took me a very long and confounding trip to find his office. It’s pretty neat though, a bunch of stuff gets filmed here, and the building is crammed with signed movie posters and paraphernalia from films. It really makes me realize I’m in Los Angeles.
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Museum of Jurassic Technology
The Museum of Jurassic Technology is in Culver City, and is a strange pseudo-fiction / pseudo-science exhibition space. Some of the exhibitions I didn’t really get drawn in to but some highlights were the exhibition of space dog portraits, featuring Laika; Cat’s Cradle prophecy; and an exhibition called “Tell the Bees…” which explains ‘old wives tells’ type of things. It was pretty rad. There was also a really nice tea room of tea and sugar cookies, which was a nice, bright chapel type of space. The exhibitions change regularly and some of the presentation styles are really neat, like little reflections and projections, there were some really great vitrine displays - if you’re not interested in the subject matter it’s probably good to just check it out for the design of the space.
“The learner must be lead always from familiar objects toward the unfamiliar, guided along, as it were, a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life”.
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Little Bar / Silverlake
I have about two weeks left in Los Angeles and this feels sad. I like it here / am not finished yet.
This weekend LA experienced such a thing called “carmeggedon”. I didn’t really understand what this was until Jeff explained it to me - the 405 interstate shut down for two days and the shit hit the fan. People broke down. Businesses closed early. Babies everywhere starting to cry. Flights from Long Beach to Burbank for $4! Bike riders racing the flight, and won! Everyone believes in humanity and the environment once again.
LA is so weird.
Apparently, rats live in palm trees. I did a little research and this seems speculatively true - they either nest in palm trees or do some messing around for food up there - but they do function in a way in palm trees. These are called “roof rats”. Rats can walk in a vertical line (I’ve seen this). Generally I find rats a little freaky - they seem to have some serious survival skills that are confounding.
It’s always sunny in California. (Except when it’s gloomy).
As I may have mentioned, LA is a mash-up of really contrasting areas, and also, attitudes towards life. Some areas, as I understand it, seem a bit more real, less about status and visible markers of this: clothes, cars, dogs (so many dogs in LA!) and more about being a human being. Culture and class feel like significant divisions on macro-level here (diasporic communities), but I’m not sure how relevant that is on a micro-level (is this my Canadian idealism?). Walking around my area I feel pretty good and have had really positive experiences and random conversations with people. People say Canadians are nice and polite but Americans can be really open, warm, and welcoming. Frankly, the only time I felt intimidated was the night of July 4th with all the fireworks, but that was the noise and not the attitude. Many people I know from home said they hated LA when they’ve been here, it’s so fake, etc - I guess it is in some ways but that makes it interesting. The people I’ve met and gotten to know have all been really amazing, genuine, interested in things other than themselves and their own lives. While I’ve been obsessed with rats in trees and the way my hair gets blonder in the sun, Angelinos are being totally awesome. In Silverlake yesterday I feel like I mostly saw lots of hipsters, and people who look like hipsters but are confused about hipsterdom, good / interesting street fashion, lots of tattoos / dogs. Met some kitties on the street.
I feel sentimental because soon I will be gone.
Just a regular day. I feel like I don’t have many photos of the city.
This is legal. I’m not a pot-smoker and am generally uninterested in the activity, but the laws are interesting. Here you can buy permits to have a certain number of plants. There are pot shops that you go to if you have a prescription from a doctor and buy pot, and it’s all legal. BUT though this is legal in the State of California, it is illegal in the United States. Confusing! States rights is something I’m still learning about but this is why capital punishment is not practiced across the whole country, or why certain states (like New York, yay!) have made same-sex marriage legal. America has some serious problems.
We went to Silverlake yesterday for coffee and a tattoo (sorry mom and dad), PETA has this billboard which my supervisor here mentioned a few times, so I was pleased to come across it accidentally. I have mixed feelings about PETA / medical research on animals but I think this billboard has a simple and effective message. I think a lot about the hierarchy of how we treat animals (i.e.humans are no. 1, then our pets and after that animals are at our disposal). My thesis is crammers with this kind of discussion.
Friday night we went out for a drink and ended up at this place, Little Bar which I really liked. They don’t have a full liquor license so only have beer and wine and soju! And we just sat down at the bar and some dude Kirk beside us bought us shots of soju for no reason (at first I thought he had a crush on Jeff) and later in the night we got some more gift shots, and one from the bartender. So friendly! Though Kirk was clearly a regular who was pretty comfortable getting really drunk and flipping back and forth between being pretty nice to being aggressive and full of crap. Little Bar is a pretty small place and I accidentally drank too much but the bartender (Tracey, who was really awesome) made me delicious somethings that takes like yummy ginger beer and soju and soda. Really good bar vibes, friendly, potentially an unofficial gay bar, good jukebox music. Good work LA!
Family portrait. Key cat, again, is avoiding eye contact. Though we’ve really been bonding. Yesterday we held hands.
I went to this place for my tattoo, they were nice, professional, whatever. Yelp has really been helping me navigate through LA, this shop was on LA Ink, which I don’t watch, but that seems credible. When I was drawing my tattoo I was looking at American tattoo legend Sailor Jerry and the art nouveau styles of Alphonse Mucha. I sort of wanted to get an original Sailor Jerry “American” tattoo but they are sort of hype right now. American Electric would have been perfect for it though, they have all Sailor Jerry flash on the walls.
