Christina VarvisPilgrimage: Being in The End Times
Jan. 19 to Feb. 13, 2016 FAB Gallery
Free
The grim sounding title is only just a taste of the harsh reality that Kyle Terrence has created in his thesis exhibit in the FAB Gallery. The intermedia short film presentation sends shivers up the spine as the large screen projects Terrence’s Pilgrimage. Terrence explains how his work is an attempt to create a consciousness in regards to society’s and his own disconnect to nature. Hanging next to the short film is the mammalian suit he created to wear for the pilgrimage that helped him transform into a naturalistic role for this journey.
“I was trying to overcome my detachment from this concept of the ecological crisis and the fact that I found that I couldn’t really care most days … I decided to go on this quest to sort of interact with my world and see if there were moments that make me feel some kind of empathy or connection,” Terrence says.
Terrence defines this pilgrimage as a secular journey to “make himself care” because it is so easy to get caught up in our daily lives without giving any thought to the global issues that surround us. There are suggestions as to what is to be done in regards to fossil fuels and global warming, but Terrence explains how difficult it is to understand that we are truly living in the end times of the ecological world. The end may be extended through several generations but the decline is occurring and Terrence embarked on a quest to empathize with nature.
“I think message is a dangerous word to use when you’re talking about artwork,” Terrance says, “I’m not trying to create guilt in the viewer; I’m not trying to convince you to do something.”
Terrence sewed a large fur suit to primitively become a mammal of the earth, enhancing his natural form. He also fashioned a mask that is nod to the plague doctors of the fourteenth century.
“They were the agents who were trying to take care of things and yet they were completely naive and they didn’t know what they were doing,” Terrence says.
The film follows Terrence in this suit walking through fields and pushing himself through cold swamps to create a consciousness of the power of nature and the fear of the unknown ecological apocalypse. The personal camera perspective outlines Terrence’s desire to give his audiences a new perspective on the ecological crisis by giving them an experience. But this was also just as much a personal quest as it was to be a demonstration. Terrence spoke of his frustration in feeling disconnected from the environment and the world. This pilgrimage was a method to become physically immersed in a moment with nature.
Digging a grave and physically entering into the natural world by laying as close to the earth as he can, he allows a storm to overcome him as he powerlessly lays there.
“I started to feel more embedded in the moment and it was like my frustration had met its pinnacle where I couldn’t penetrate these surfaces and so I physically penetrated by cutting into it and it was sort of like punching a pillow or that kind of thrashing out against something that you couldn’t overcome,” Terrence says.
This exhibit is also a commentary or response on modern apocalypse films as Terrence finds them unrealistic. He explains his frustration with these films because they do not make sense to someone living in the twenty first century. There are great problems that must be dealt with but they cannot be compared to big spectacles that are seen in films.
“I wanted to think about what it actually looks like to be living in the ecological crisis. And that’s what my work is about. So I think if you come in and check out the work there may be a refreshing quality to it. Its something that I think is more relatable than a horde of zombies chasing you.”
