Touchstones Nelson and Oxygen Art Centre, Fall/Winter 2017

Wide Shot/Close Up is an original work, using the medium of video and video installation, where multiple individuals from around the Columbia Basin will be asked to speak candidly about identity and perceptions about themselves and other social groups seemingly different than their own. Funded by a major project grant from the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance and other pending sources, the exhibition will launch at Touchstones Nelson in November of 2014.

The wide shot taken by one camera will capture their broader surroundings within their ‘home’ space, acting like a canvas. While their words and facial expressions, shot by a second camera, colour the canvas, like paint. When installed, the juxtapositions of people paired together by a variety of video screens, will allow a fresh conversation about identity, bringing cultural differences alive with visual and auditory contrasts.

My objective for the video installation Wide Shot/Close Up is to build community one conversation at a time. I believe that the greatest social shifts towards acceptance between different socio-cultural groups arise in unexpected places when we connect with those that are most seemingly different from us.

The Mir Centre for Peace is partnering with Watershed Productions on Wide Shot/Close Up by providing consultation on the content and structure of the conversations, through integration of the video installation into their existing programming and engaging the public with the process.

Students from local schools come to Touchstones to talk to Amy about the themes of the installation: social connection, community building and personal identity.