date> 2000

medium> installation with ball-bearings raining from overhead tracks, electrical mechanisms

dimensions> variable

description>
The installation ... features a gentle and continuous shower of small ball-bearings across an apparently-empty space. These quietly bounce around, puddling here and there, and are eventually picked up to begin the cycle anew. This constant yet barely visible movement establishes a zone of uncertainty, elusiveness, and slight hazard, and also of play. The project arose from an invitation to develop new work based on artefacts from the collection of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto. The conceptual origin of ... was a small quantity of pachinko balls in this collection, which were remarkable precisely because they were so innocuous. As unassuming artefacts of a game of chance, they not only were tokens of everyday compulsions, but also had the potential to represent a slipping-away of things. Translating the pachinko balls into the mechanical efficiency of ball-bearings and further re-imagining them as a sort of elemental force, the installation embodies a state of chance and passage by creating a space of slippage, of fluidity, and of forgetting rather than remembering.

credits> commissioned by Gendai Gallery

selected bibliography> CAG catalogue; Globe and Mail review; Georgia Straight review; Vie des Arts review

presentation history> 2000 Gendai Gallery (v. 1); 2001 Contemporary Art Gallery (v. 2); 2001 Plug In ICA (v. 2); upcoming 2004 Edmonton Art Gallery (v. 3)