Video: Aya Garcia
Surrounded/Surrounding includes a wood-burning fire bowl, etched leather camp stools and a life-sized rendering of the artist’s wood pile in a graphic score. Written on the split logs and the spaces between them are references to the breathing, beating labour that creates what a fire needs, as well as the trees, sun, sky and ground that surrounds and creates all else. Cursive text adorns the twelve camp stools, shifting from embraced to embracing, from enclosed to enclosing. The installation anticipates the event it proposes and these words evoke the transition from proposition to action. In collaboration with composer Patrick Carrabré, Métis soprano Melody Courage interprets Willard’s Woodpile Score, reflecting on the themes of Surrounded/Surrounding in vocal performance.
On Monday, November 30 at 7:30pm EST / 4:30pm PST, Tania Willard will host an Instagram Live event (@willardart) on the Secwépemc Territory, where she will light a fire and ask people to join her remotely as witnesses. The Belkin will join Willard on Instagram Live (@belkinartgallery) and share our documentation of Melody Courage’s performance.
