Submission 2023
| Submitted by: | Darcy Macdonald |
| Department: | Art and Design |
| Faculty: | Arts |
As a research creation component of my MFA Intermedia thesis I have recovered hundreds of fragments of early 20th century industrial and municipal waste from a pre-war dumpsite along the North Saskatchewan river; transporting these elements to my North Power Plant studio where they are carefully arranged and modified to form a site-specific working installation (artwork).
These found object items are used as a framework for interpreting or divining a complex interrelationship of actants at the nexus of historical empirical evidence and contemporary art and theory. Through a new-materialist lens I examine how these objects of trash and the histories and forces that came to place them along our river are situated in my contemporary art practice and the world at large.
The supplied image shows the entryway to my studio space which I consider to be both a labyrinth and a laboratory. It is an environment where becoming lost in art-making leads to the discovery of rich and exciting connections between seemingly disparate objects / forms / materials; a minotaur-like hybridization between discarded objects and contemporary art.