Trust Fall: How can we play together?
Nanaimo Art Gallery, Nanaimo, BC - Feb 1 – April 13
Many of us can remember playing a game as children where one person falls backwards into the waiting arms of the person behind them (often a sibling), trusting that they will catch them. This concept is the theme behind Trust Fall, a new exhibition at Nanaimo Art Gallery featuring works from artists Laura Gildner and Jon Sasaki.
“I was thinking about this idea of how misunderstanding can be generative and how a lot of artists work with the generative potentials of miscommunication or mistranslation,” says gallery curator Jesse Birch, who inadvertently co-created a piece for the show more than a decade ago when he misinterpreted an image of Sasaki’s Flying V guitar, resting on a too-large case, as an artwork about belonging.
Misconstructions, a collaborative 2022 origami work between Sasaski and artist Baco Ohama, was born out of the communication issues people experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic from isolating and long-distance communication. Over a four-week period the two— blind-paired by the curator—exchanged origami-folding instructions via audio in a process that was by turns frustrating and hilarious, says Sasaki, who is based in Toronto.
“Covid took everybody out of their comfort zone in so many different ways that it felt very natural, with art making, to take my usual practice out of its comfort zone,” says Sasaki. “The trust element seems pretty germane to this. We sort of trust that…there’s going to be something good that comes out of the process.”
Trusting the process is also part of Victoria-based Gildner’s works in LOVECHILD, which use clay sculpture, manipulated photographs and video inspired by a failed attempt to bid on actor Patrick Swayze’s molar at a celebrity memorabilia auction. After getting a replica made, Gildner used the tooth to collaborate with a psychic medium on ceramic works while contacting the actor from beyond the grave, and implanting the tooth to sing a Dirty Dancing–era duet with Swayze inside her own mouth. “It was a collaboration between me and the ghost of Patrick Swayze,” she says with a laugh.
