Filing Memory
mixed media installation
Curated by Vicky Chainey Gagnon

Foreman Art Gallery at Bishop's University
September 15 septembre – December 11 décembre 2010

Composed of the 3-frame video installation Wandering through Secret Storms as well as new works, this solo exhibition project addresses the relationship between archives, public memory and practices of surveillance. Presented in a creative mise-en-scène, Christina Battle’s moving image work forms the nexus around which will be displayed communication devices (telegraph, camera, radio, telephone) from private and public collections coupled with documents from local archives, thus situating surveillance as a practice affecting all communities – regardless of their urban or rural specificities.

wandering through secret storms (2009)
In the not-so-distant future an old government archive is discovered.  As workers sift through the files in an attempt to put them into context, a storm locked up since the past is unleashed.

Looking closer at FBI files of US civil rights activists once deemed dissident, wandering through secret storms considers the role such information might one day play in shaping our understandings of the past.

curatorial text by Vicky Chainey Gagnon (pdf)

Thanks to the generous support of The Ontario Arts Council [Media Arts Section].

And the Canada Council for the Arts [Media Arts Section]