SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER 2010
Four Directions
Video installation for inaugural launch of Evergreen at the Brick Works
On the First Nations Medicine Wheel, the four directions representing North, South, East and West allude, among other things, to the need for balance, both in the world and in ourselves.
Four Directions is a film and video exhibition that presents a journey from Werner Herzog’s bleak documentation of Kuwait’s burning oil fields in his film Lessons of Darkness to Isabelle Hayeur’s curtain of softly falling salt crystals, followed by Val Klassen’s still signs of hope within a ravaged landscape, to Dana Claxton’s mesmerizing plea on behalf of water.
The exhibition is designed to convey a message that positive change can emerge from destruction. Together, the three works provide an artistic response to Herzog’s film in a way that reflects the mandates of both No.9 and Evergreen Brickworks. This is that contemporary art can stimulate positive social and environmental change and that individuals can live in harmony with and contribute meaningfully to their local environment.