being physically present in a place, 

while mentally elsewhere.

francis alys, narcotourism, 1996, graphic documentation of an action,copenhagen.

untitled, embroidery and found text on paper, 2011.

Rebecca Belmore, Ayum-ee-aawach-oomona-mowan:

Procession to the meadow (Speaking to their Mother), 1991.

Belmore, With 13 Native speakers, 27 july 1991:

Ayum-ee-aawach-oomona-mowan: Speaking to their Mother

"This artwork was my response to what is now 

referred to in Canadian history as the "Oka Crisis".  

During the summer of 1990, many protests were mounted 

in support of the Mohawk Nation of Kanesatake 

in their struggle to maintain their territory.  

This object was taken into many First Nation communities -

reservation, rural, and urban.  I was particularly 

interested in locating the Aboriginal voice on the land.  

Asking people to address the land directly 

was an attempt to hear political protest and poetic action."

(new) hand, winter 2011.

"Animals presage earthquakes by several days.  Cattle grow restless, birds fall silent, pets go missing.  They sense the infant seismic stirrings that will mature into catastrophe.  Collapse.  Something is always slipping while our lives sit balanced on the edge.  Put together a world that holds, the way it used to be.  A cup is missing its saucer.  Put this one with this.  If that works, try a bolder move: this couch with these drapes, this body with that time.  Now change your father, become your ancestor, find the family you lost, the purpose you missed."




Liz Magor, "White House Paint," Real Fictions: Four Canadian Artists (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996).