Raw and Unlikely Places
Tegan Forbes

Light is projected onto the body transcending both form and location. The first half of these images were collected from the graffiti riddled alleyways of Montreal and San Francisco. The second portion of images was mapped from a barren memorial in one of Germany’s concentration camps. This work has emerged as a personal cartography demonstrating the need to convey the trajectory of emotional force and physical experience contained in particular areas.

In the essay Politics of Location, Adrienne Rich wrote “I need to understand how a place on the map is also a place in history within. How do I situate myself in these histories that I happen upon?” The human touch of public mark making provides me with an examination of pathways of memory, referencing the presence of someone who was here before. Collecting images within the offbeat tracks of intimate urban spaces activates the imaginative use of what already exists and the ability to transform it into something else: a different reality, a creative space where we can change things. Using the body as a canvas these random marks become filtered contour lines upon the human form, examining the intersection of a private biography captured from public spaces.

Employing these memorials is a way of contributing to the places that I have learned from and traveled to. It is about the right to situate myself in public areas creating a physical awareness and dialogue within specific locations. Disrupting that which might be otherwise taken for granted. Sometimes clearly articulating the aesthetic qualities, these images transcend their locations offering solace through light and form.

Exhibition date: January 11 – February 10, 2007

gallery   McLarney   Garneau

Tegan Forbes' Website