Engines of Difference is my new project in collaboration with Toronto-based artist Lynne Heller, commissioned for ISEA Dubai 2014. Lynne and I met at ISEA Istanbul 2011 and put the bones of this proposal together the following year. It was designed for a desert environment, initially in the US. When we heard ISEA would be held in Dubai, this seemed the perfect location - Lynne had visited Dubai previously on a short stop-over - we developed our proposal to combine my work with geoartcaches and the geocaching community with Lynne's work with her Second Life avatar Nar Duell and large-format art comics, to utilise the surreal tourist-bus touring to Dubai's shopping malls, juxtaposed with the ancient creek-side heart of the city and the fringes of the industrial areas and desert sands. Lynne and I worked on project development and funding applications earlier this year during my visit to Toronto - during our residency at Artscape's Gibraltar Point retreat on Toronto Island, and back on the mainland. Sadly the funding applications were highly competitive, and not successful. However we decided to fund the trip ourselves with family sponsorship, and make the project go ahead.... in Dubai, where it culminated in an exhibition of work in progress and an artists talk at the closing event in Arsakal Avenue, and - after an intensive period of production - as a series of exhibits in the Virtual Worlds Exhibition at Salisbury Arts Centre, Wiltshire UK.
The project is documented on our website http://enginesofdifference.com/ and also shared on facebook and twitter
Here's a slideshow of images from our Dubai residency, hosted by ISEA at A4 Project Space, Al Serkal Avenue:
Engines of Difference: Dubai from Engines of Difference on Vimeo.
Here's a slideshow of images from our Dubai residency, hosted by ISEA at A4 Project Space, Al Serkal Avenue:
Engines of Difference: Dubai from Engines of Difference on Vimeo.
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