Why I still heart you, Montreal.

I’ve hung my allegorical hat in a slew of different places over the years but one of the cities that made the deepest impression was undoubtedly Montreal where I spent a good chunk of time attempting to further my art career and where I dreamt of being accosted by Leonard Cohen’s diamond-eyed gaze while treading my way down the ice-glazed sidewalks of Rue Marie-Anne. Sure, it wasn’t always that romantic but nevertheless, in the recesses of my memory, the city continues to emit a soft glow amid shadowy layers, like a glimmering winter globe wrapped in scented tissue tucked carefully away in a drawer.

Next of Kin, a beautiful short film about two sisters living in neighboring flats made by my great friend Kara Blake, is richly evocative of the gruff tenderness, the lovable inability-to-be-lovedness that one experiences at the onset of a long Montreal winter only to emerge unexpectedly enlightened upon the first signs of spring.  The monotony of this vicious cycle can be a brutal thing to experience year after year (overpowered by an accumulation of personally profound understandings,  I was eventually prompted to flee the city) but in retrospect, the whole tedious process also served as a consistent testament of my own personal growth as a young person who, like many others, had come to the city to ‘find myself’ – and did.

But rather than offering a perspective on Montreal’s transcendental qualities (as a city apparently adept at spurring on routine evolutions of the Self) which falls in danger of coming across as either predictably straight-forward or obliquely abstract, Next of Kin gives us a glimpse into something much more experiential, much more sensually direct; while the film pivots around Kara and her sister, Julie, the viewer is confronted by the human presence evoked through the space and contents of each apartment. The distant positioning of the camera stands in direct contrast with its personable subject, allowing one to take on the viewpoint of a voyeur who suddenly finds himself struck by the banal yet intimate conventions he is bearing witness to.  In short, what I love most about Kara’s films is their ability to tap into an emotion that was previously deemed intangible. She makes the most out of every scene, whether one is referring to aesthetics, the emotional quality of the space or the characters who play out their lives within it.

The film was recently nominated as one of the top five finalists in the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Emerging Filmmakers competition in conjunction with RBC. You can watch Next of Kin here and vote for it to win the Fan Favorite Award. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did…

 

(Images courtesy of Kara Blake)

Final Boarding Call

Due to an unexpected change of plans (and change of heart), I find myself staying put this holiday season. Perhaps that would explain why I’m feeling particularly wistful at the thought of airports these days. While the age-old glamor of boarding a plane and jetting off to a place with balmy weather and swaying palm trees has long been lost – what with the ever-heightening security measures being imposed on passengers as of late  – that post check-in experience of enjoying my machine-dispensed coffee at the waiting area continues to evoke happy memories for this global nomad, even when it means being allocated an aisle seat next to five screaming brats on a long-haul flight.

I discovered a kindred spirit in Malaysian-born and Australian-bred photojournalist Tammy Law when I first stumbled upon her work a few years back. Drawing upon the paintings of Edward Hopper and the photography of Lynne Cohen for inspiration, Law has a tendency of diverting one’s attentions back to environments that might come across as generic or entirely dismissive in the first place. This series of photographs, in their subtlety, depict the airport as a setting for  the unexpected, a blank slate waiting to be filled.

For me, Law‘s airport images quietly expose the metaphysical layer of spaces that have purposefully been designed to reflect practicality and homogeneity upon first glance.  (Strangely, wherever one lands, these are automatically the kind of  qualities that have become most indicative of an airport’s projected essence of ‘internationalism’ as well as its designated sense of reliability.)

The pervading element of emptiness come across as the strongest part of these photographs. One can really sense the heavy, underlying tension that is being emphasized as the systematic sterility of these areas become suddenly tainted with the emotional air of the fleeting human presence.

(All images courtesy of Tammy Law)

It’s Out!

Technically, the book’s been out for a while (the launch was held at the V2_Lab for Unstable Media in Rotterdam on October 27) and has been getting a bit of press already but I thought I’d post it up anyway.

If you are interested in getting a closer look, you can check out the short video clip below provided courtesy of the book’s designer Paul Swagerman – of course, you can also order your own lovely copy through NAi Publishers’ website. To read an excerpt from the book, please click here.