In the Hole was a short-term residency located in an earthen hole on Treaty 6 territory in rural Saskatchewan, Canada. Each resident spent 6 hours each day in this hole as a participant in this residency. Residents could visit the hole for either one-day, up to a maximum of three consecutive days. One person would participate each day.
This residency coincided with an exhibition at PAVED Arts Saskatoon. Live video and audio streaming from the hole were presented in the gallery for the duration of each residency day.
It’s in the Hole, was a two day, site-specific, durational performance where myself and Linda Duvall gathered the appropriate materials, made golf balls from the local sand and soil, and designed our own score cards for a game of golf. On the final day, with the help of Linda, my Caddie, I played a 9-hole course of Pitch and Putt in a sand-filled, earthen hole. I imagined myself as a historical prairie woman golfer, taking practice swings for a championship.
It’s in the Hole, explored the intersection of art, labour, athleticism, humour, and our mental health. We live in a world that promotes a rhetorical opposition between art and sports, yet both harbour mental and physical demands of the body and spirit, particularly in terms of competition, collaboration, catharsis, and energy.
My focus on golf draws attention to how the game requires concentration, self-confidence, and freedom from anxiety or doubt. I tried to find these mental states in the hole, but was not be able to find them on my own. Like every good game of golf, the golfer has a Caddie at their side. Linda Duvall participated as my Caddie.
A good Caddie is aware of the challenges and obstacles of the golf course being played along with the best strategy for playing it. My Caddie offered verbal and written pieces of advice for maintaining the necessary patience and concentration needed for creating the golf balls.
Each golf ball were handmade to be approximately the same diameter of a golf ball. For two days and six hours each day, my Caddie and I, sought internal advice and self-realization through collaboration and the repetitive process of making golf balls.
Messages from those who are absent, was a collaboration between Linda Duvall and Alana Moore for Nuit Blanche Saskatoon, 2016. Both artists, collected 200 pieces of advice, which were shared with festival goers via cupcakes. The delivered messages were from people who could not physically be present for the festival.
Moore collected messages from older adults who live at Sherbrooke Community Centre, while Duvall gathered messages from inmakes who are serving federal time at the healing lodge near Prince Albert.
The artists asked those who are absent to give advice to people who would be attending the festival.
Moore and Duvall offered cupcakes at their tent. Those wishing to take a cupcake, would read the message of advice aloud, then respond to it. The responses were taped and eventually played back to the orginial people who gave the advice.
The Ribbon Project: Awards for the Everyday, is a series of fiber and printmaking works that draws from the material culture of craft and athletics to speak to some of the similarities between art and sports.
“Awards for the everyday” exists as an ongoing participatory project where viewers are invited to submit writing to the project. Viewers then become fans, reading the so-‐called successes and losses of our mental health. After all, prescribing to a team often eases the anxiety found in isolation with that of communal solidarity and camaraderie. Winning becomes more celebratory, and losing becomes a shared burden. Ultimately, my efforts to find a meaningful place in the sporting world provided me with a critical lens into the history of mental health issues among athletes and my own psychological makeup.
Each ribbon is screenprinted and hand cut.
