Opening : Friday June 14, 2013 at 5pm
Guest curator : David Liss
During recent trips to Cape Dorset in the Canadian Arctic in 2011 and 2012, Toronto-based film artist John Price used video and film as a lens to view the land and living conditions of communities that are unfamiliar to most of us. Though geographically spectacular, historically important and culturally rich, the Arctic is not necessarily thought of as a popular tourist destination. Nevertheless, the remote North is often imagined and perceived from a distance as being fascinating in unusual ways. Through his visits Price has become intrigued by the place and its people.
Interestingly, Price considers The Sacred & The Profane to be documentaries but these four videos and one 16mm film do not adhere to the standard conventions associated with the genre. They contain little to no dialogue and there are no ‘talking heads’ delivering opinions. Viewers are not expected to take a stand on specific issues nor is it possible or even relevant to interpret the filmmaker’s position on any particular topic. We are merely invited to quietly observe, as the artist does, aspects of the landscape and the everyday existence of this part of the world. The footage that Price presents consists primarily of single-frame shots; they resemble ‘deadpan’ compositions akin to theatre sets across which ‘protagonists’ enter, linger or leave. The ‘set’ frames empty streetscapes, various buildings and natural phenomena such as landscapes, clouds, light and darkness. Deviating briefly from this format, in one scene Price has an exchange with a group of children and in another he places his camera inside his shopping cart as he wheels around a grocery store.
His vignettes are more experiential and poetic than what might be expected of typical, didactic documentaries. The mostly stationary camera also runs counter to the currently fashionable handheld, rapid-fire jump-cut style that emphasizes movement or exaggerates action to conjure illusions of immediacy and spontaneity. His approach is antithetical to mainstream cinematic conventions and the easily-digestible ways in which we expect information to be conveyed these days. There are no revelatory moments; there is no discernable narrative, no over-dubbed soundtrack, no definitive beginning, middle or end to these “stories”. Time being relative, it indeed unfolds differently in the North than it does in the increasingly urbanized environment and technologically driven, fast pace of our age. Through texture, existing ambient sound, compositional structure real-time pace and movement, and unfettered observation, Price reveals something of the actual character and essence of the place; there is something inexplicable and moving about the ‘sacred’ natural forces that so predominantly govern the ‘profane’ humanity of survival amidst the rugged conditions of the North.
As much about the North as this body of work may be, through these works Price also suggests that much may be overlooked in the haste and convenience that rule our modern lives. If the pace of these videos at first seems uncomfortably slow compared to what we have come to expect from moving pictures, watching becomes more compelling as we eventually find our perception focussed, sharpened, more active than passive, more attuned to detail. Our interest is consistently sustained rather than perpetually stimulated. If Price’s The Sacred & The Profane documentaries ask anything of us, it is that we take the time to look, to see, to perceive more astutely, and to understand more deeply all that is around us, whether in the North or beyond.
—David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCA Toronto
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John Price
John Price is an independent filmmaker. His love of analog photography led naturally to extensive alchemical experimentation with a wide range of motion picture film emulsions and camera formats. His engagement with these materials highlights the way an image’s texture communicates subtext and is a key feature of his work.
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