Elizabeth MacKenzie has exhibited her installations and videotapes nationally and internationally since the early eighties. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art with an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, her practice includes an ongoing commitment to collaboration, curating, writing and teaching.
Jeanne Randolph is one of Canada’s foremost cultural theorists. She is the author of the influential book Psychoanalysis & Synchronized Swimming (1991) as well as Symbolization and Its Discontents (1997), Why Stoics Box, (2003), and Ethics of Luxury (2007). Dr. Randolph is also known as an engaging lecturer and performance artist. In universities and galleries across Canada, England, Australia, and Spain she has spoken on topics ranging from the aesthetics of Barbie dolls to the philosophy of Wittgenstein.
Lorna Brown is a visual artist, writer, educator and editor, exhibiting her work internationally since 1984. Brown was the Director/Curator of Artspeak Gallery from 1999 to 2004 and is a founding member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, a collective of artists, architects and curators presenting projects that consider the varying conditions of public places and public life. She has taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and Simon Fraser University. Brown received an honorary degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2015), the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts Award (1996) and the Canada Council Paris Studio Award (2000). Her work is in the collections of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the BC Arts Council, the Surrey Art Gallery and the Canada Council Art Bank.
Director/Curator of Artspeak 1999–2004.
The Underside of Shadows
ELIZABETH MACKENZIE, JEANNE RANDOLPH
September 8–October 13, 2001
The Underside of Shadows interprets the invasion of everyday life by microscopic creatures, whose effect on humans are often presented through the medical dualities of normal and abnormal, purity and contamination, danger and safety. Within this collaborative installation, images and pattern poetry are drawn directly on the walls of the gallery; an ephemeral method that does not rely upon the idea of the work of art as an autonomous object, or presume the gallery space as neutral, or deny text any visually aesthetic commonalties with image.
The Underside of Shadows includes representations of the germ Giardia Lamblia, one of the intestinal parasites most commonly identified in waterborne disease outbreaks. Here imagery and text intertwine in such a way that viewers may ponder the visual metaphor of human-to-microbe and microbe-to-human influences. These unseen entities provoke reconsideration of ordinary perception, everyday dependence upon technology and closer scrutiny of our anxiety to find narratives to account for realities we imagine, yet cannot see.
This two person exhibition is the result of a long-distance, often technologically mediated collaboration between Elizabeth MacKenzie, a visual artist known for her video, photography and drawn installation works and Jeanne Randolph, a Toronto psychoanalyst and writer of highly inventive ficto-criticism. This new work draws from a twenty year association as well as a recent shared residency at The Banff Centre for the Arts’ Leighton Studios.
Title: The Underside of Shadows
Category: Exhibition Catalogue
Artist: Elizabeth MacKenzie, Jeanne Randolph
Writers: Elizabeth MacKenzie, Jeanne Randolph
Design: Judith Steedman
Publisher: Artspeak
Year published: 2001
Pages: 22pp
Cover: Mylar envelope
Binding: 23 loose pages (21 mylar, 2 paper)
Process: Offset
Features: Sticker on envelope
Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 0.1 cm
Weight: 60 g
ISBN: 0-921394-37-3
Price: $4 CDN
The Underside of Shadows is a publication undertaken to extend the collaborative installation by Elizabeth MacKenzie and Jeanne Randolph, which took place at Artspeak from September 8 to October 13, 2001. This exhibition was the result of a long-distance, often technologically mediated collaboration between Elizabeth MacKenzie, a visual artist known for her video, photography and drawn installation works and Jeanne Randolph, a Toronto psychoanalyst and writer of highly inventive ficto-criticism. Within the installation, images and pattern poetry were drawn directly on the walls of the gallery; an ephemeral method that did not rely upon the idea of the work of art as an autonomous object, nor presume the gallery space as neutral.
The Underside of Shadows interprets the invasion of everyday life by microscopic creatures, whose effect on humans are often presented through the medical dualities of normal and abnormal, purity and contamination, danger and safety. These unseen entities provoke reconsideration of ordinary perception, everyday dependence upon technology and closer scrutiny of our anxiety to find narratives to account for realities we imagine, yet cannot see.
In keeping with the methods and suggested by the work, this publication is designed and disseminated as a mail project with a wide distribution, infiltrating the delivery systems of national and international communication. Threats of contamination have taken on a new dimension and the letterbox has come to be seen as a potentially hazardous locale in recent months. This publication project breaks the containment of the gallery as a reminder of both the exhibition and the increased vigilance of physical and cultural boundaries that technologies claim to maintain.