Written by Charlie Fox
As part of the public art exhibition Niche – installation, intervention and performance art presented April-May in downtown Guelph 30 years ago – the group of 25 artists featured in the exhibition determined that a video documentary should be part of the exhibition’s record, alongside the printed catalogue. With Niche’s variety of artistic approaches, this seemed appropriate because the work occupied public space in diverse ways, reflecting the range of ideas, physical interaction, dimensionality, fixed or time-based qualities and performative approaches; each resulting work was unique to each artist. Video and sound seemed perfect for such documentation.
For myself, in the role of a video artist documenting contemporary art, it seemed natural to take an artistic approach in representing Niche’s range of creativity. The one structural element of the video that remained fixed was that each artist was allocated one minute of documentation. The artists were all consulted as to how the essence of their work would be captured: some left the resolution to me, but most were directly engaged in the process. With the resulting trust and creativity, each artist’s minute was constructed.
The resources of Guelph’s media arts centre, Ed Video, were essential to both production and postproduction/editing. The time-based attributes of video and sound moving through space opened up the creative combination of each artist’s work in an animated and engaging minute-by-minute approach within the production. The resulting documentary of Niche was, for me, a fine creative project, with the unique representation required for each artwork, having a great time engaging with all the artists to ensure they were represented in their “moment” and assembling the results into what remains a reminder of the depth of talent and insight of this 1995 collective of artists.
The video documentary “Niche: Art Outside the Gallery” was funded with an Explorations Grant from the Canada Council.
View the entire niche booklet here.
