Ian Campbell / Life Support
September 1–October 14, 2022
Opening Reception: September 9th, 2022, 7:30pm
Ian Campbell presents his ongoing project entitled Life Support. Over the past 10 years he has been creating time-lapse films of biological processes in and around his home and other locations. Campbell uses the medium of time-lapse to investigate the natural process of growth, decay and fermentation. Each of these filming setups consists of a camera, a light source, mechanical interventions, a biological subject and a setting.
Campbell states, “I see the setup of these items as a sculptural object in its own right, and not only the means to produce a short film. Life Support is an extension of some of my previous performance videos in that the artist’s body has been replaced with biological substitutes. These substitutes encourage the idea that within the rigidity of our technologically mediated world, life continues to flourish.” Campbell incorporates subjects such as cuttings from plants, molds growing on fruit and vegetables, kombucha, bread yeast, kefir, mushrooms, and sprouting seeds. The artist intentionally positions such biological forms in opposition to the urban environment in hopes that his work functions in the same way that weeds push up through cracks in the pavement, giving pause to passersby.
Ian Campbell would like to extend sincere thanks to Neutral Ground Artist-Run Centre for staging Life Support in their window space, and to Silt Studio in Regina for allowing him the opportunity to experiment and develop this project over a two-year period. A video archive is available in this exhibition to see previous incarnations of Life Support.
Artist Bio:
Ian Campbell is a filmmaker and multimedia artist who works in video, installation and performance art. His short films have been screened across Canada at film and experimental media festivals such as Festival Du Nouveau Cinema (Montreal), WNDX (Winnipeg), Antimatter (Victoria), and The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany). He has presented performance work using live improvised projected video at artist run centres and performance venues across western Canada. He is currently based in Saskatchewan (Treaty 4) where he teaches film at the University of Regina.
