Non-places

Additional Information

Jan Peacock, Book of Chairs, 1997, video installation

"I find that a good place to think about the future is in aiRegina Public Libraryanes and airports because time and place start to merge there, and everything is in constant, unstoppable motion." -- Laurie Anderson Airports, train stations, bus terminals -- we are familiar with these places which are simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. This exhibition explores ideas of location and dis-location. These transit terminals provide contradictory experiences: from the bland, indistinguishable decor, bereft of local particularities, to the passion and personal intensity of loved ones coming together or being torn apart. Not only do these (non)places seem to defy space, but also time, as there is constant flux, seemingly unconnected to a diurnal, or natural rhythm. Line Break is a photo and text-based installation. During a train journey across Canada in 1996, Saskatchewan artist Ellen Moffat photographed the view from the window every hour on the hour. Moffat describes the resulting trans-continental moments as "time-places." A narrative experience of the original journey is constructed through visual documentation, text, and interpretation. In Nova Scotia artist Jan Peacock's Book of Chairs (1997), we are presented with a row of three industrial plastic chairs equipped with small, coin-operated televisions -- the kind often found in bus depots -- which offer three video programs. The videos alternately depict airport arrivals, departures, or as in the centre chair, a montage of the artist at the dentist, discussing the video-taping she has been doing in airports, family ties, and voyeurism. Both pieces offer unconventional meditations on time, place, travel, looking, and longing.