Video Pool marks 25 years with new works

Thanks for this 25th Anniversary coverage, Stacey!!

Video Pool marks 25 years with new works
Stacey Abrahamson, Winnipeg Free Press, April 25, 2008

Video Pool Media Arts Centre has much to celebrate on its 25th birthday.

The organization has promoted, pushed and loved video art since the early days of the medium. Rooted in community art ideals, Video Pool has been one of the most welcoming homes of creativity in Canada -- it began as a way for artists interested in working in video to "pool" together their resources.

To celebrate its anniversary, Video Pool commissioned six new media art works by Prairie artists through local curators Grant Guy and Sigrid Dahle. Each of these works gets a one-week run at various locations in the Exchange District. Dahle commissioned Richard Dyck, Steven Loft and the collaborative artistic duo of Peter Courtemanche and Lori Weidenhammer through the curatorial concept of Temporarily out of order: downtime. Seen/Unseen is the curatorial vision of Guy through the work of Sharon Alward, Daniel Barrow and Victoria Prince.

Guy's curatorial intent has more to do with performance-based artists and their works, while Dahle's intent has more to do with the vulnerabilities that occur within both the technology surrounding video and the artists who make the works. Both concepts are true to the beginnings of Video Pool, where both performance and conceptual art came together to create a base for artists looking to explore the new medium of video art.

The works by Dyck and Prince are currently showing. Barrow's Trying to Love the Normal Amount was the first of the works to debut in the city on April 12. Barrow normally performs his animations by overlapping colourful transparencies onto one another to create movement and life on screen. In this case, he puts the role of performer onto the audience. Audience members are invited to perform the work through the directions on a screen that's set up like a karaoke prompter. They are asked to play out the sad tale of a woman looking for love and comfort.

Dyck's work always has a feeling of home and history. His video The day we cut Nettie's curls, she was 7 years old is no different. Taking the story behind a 1947 photograph, Dyck creates a 3-D environment that explores the twists and turns of its tale. The environment is a series of black and white hills and gorges that the viewer travels through with the assistance of a glowing tonal orb. The sadness and strength of the story that is told through text on the screen is heightened by the silence in the room and the 3-D space. Dyck invites the viewers to ponder the scene and story that is given to them through the serenity of the created artificial hush of its backdrop.

Walking up the stairs to Prince's installation, the viewer is pummelled with the powerful fragrance of incense. When the viewer reaches the top of the stairs and the entrance to the installation room, the scent becomes almost unbearable. The candle-lit room holds Light and Alter, Prince's glistening watery installation. Two Plexiglas waterfalls stand on either side of a stone- and salt-laden path leading into a video projection and light. Viewers are invited to walk through the path to what Prince calls a "tabernacle."

She creates a new media metaphor of spirituality that is not only witnessed but experienced, and is unlike any work she has done before.

Still to come are works by Alward, Loft and the duo of Courtemanche and Weidenhammer, details of which can be found on the Video Pool website.

The six commissions and artists represent a sampling of the best artists working in new media in Canada. It is a fabulous way to celebrate the organization's achievements and is indicative of the creative and conceptual past it has had and the potential of its future.