i the spaces in between Created for Interface: The New Victoria Open Art Gallery of Greater Victoria: June 25, 2004 to September 5, 2004 Guest curated by Linda Sawchyn |
Diana Lynn Thompson Home Gallery Recent projects 2000-2002 1994 -99 Exhibition List CV Site Map Links Contact |
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| environmental installations ephemeral art Canada victoria |
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| The spaces in between Littleneck clamshells drilled by moonsnails 9' x 5.5' I’m interested in how my life is connected – and in what ways– to the life of these clams. How I falter as I try to make the connections – placing them into a category – making them fit a description, a system, a plan (the grid). These are Native littleneck clams, Protothaca staminea. It takes four to six years for them to reach this size – two inches. Phylum Mollusca Class Bivalvia Order Veneroida Family Veneridae Genus Protothaca Species staminea They were killed a large predatory snail, Polinices lewisii, (the Lewis Moon Snail), which drilled a hole through their shells. The shells lie scattered on the beaches where I live. What I come up against is that these are bones - empty shells. What is left behind. An empty space. What I don’t know, what I can’t control, what remains outside of my knowledge, seems more pregnant with meaning than what I have learned. The spaces in between, the gaps where there is mystery, where I don’t know anything other than this is a full and different life, bring me closer to the reality of a clam’s existence than all my knowledge does. When I use my senses, when I just touch and feel and see, my response is to honour and revere these clams’ lives, and be moved by the simple fact of their being. Diana Lynn Thompson May 2004 |
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| Interface exhibition (Centennial Gallery, AGGV)
foreground: Megan Dickie's Touchy Subject back left: Dale Roberts' Lukey's Boat wall: the spaces in between |