Roadtrip Rationale: Pardon Me (VAN)

One of the ideas we take for granted is that we are but one in a sea of many, with that anonymity providing both comfort and solace. Part of the appeal of the glut of reality television (and shock radio and tabloids before that) is that there is this transparency applied to an individual's existence, the removal, however temporary, of the social protections that we hold dear. The new Pardon Me exhibit at Vancouver's Charles H. Scott Gallery explores the intersection between our public and private lives, and how even small benign disruptions cause discomfort.

Pardon Me is a collection of works centered around actively violating our sense of public privacy. The exhibit itself features the artifacts of prior experience, with postcards, video, letters, and photocopies of various interventions. These interactions range from the subversive to the collaborative, with Montreal's Clément de Gaulejac "tidying up" the possessions of people off swimming in the Paris Plage (like a smaller scaled version of the exploits in Germany's The Edukators), while Jana Leo invited strangers to come back to her studio to work with a team of writers to craft love letters. Ron Tran's entry is almost confrontational, with him approaching strangers outside late at night asking if he could walk them home and photograph them, in an obvious play on their fears.

The works within Pardon Me are obviously very conceptual. That said, the concepts aren't so esoteric that this exhibit dwells in artistic solipsism. Instead, while it doesn't propose a need for change, it invites us to consider ideas that reach down to the very core of our society, and where the personal and the public collide. It's art as provacateur, as candy for both eye and brain, a balance not often so delicately struck.

Pardon Me
Charles H. Scott Gallery @ the Emily Carr Institute
1399 Johnston Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
March 15 to April 23, 2006
Mon to Fri from 12pm to 5pm
Sat and Sun from 10am to 5pm
Free