2 x 2k or 4k video installation. Alternately available as a single channel program with both image tracks in one file. Colour. Run time 22′. Presented here with both channels combined into one stream. Ideal projection size: 2 x 8’x15′ or larger. Exhibition setup is flexible: ideal scenarios are a single long wall or two hanging screens either aligned in straight line or at an angle of approx. 120 degrees to each other. NOTE: This film has NO voiceover. The subtitles stand on their own and do not correspond to any recorded voice track. A film of current urgency, now that the Canadian government has approved the controversial, and misguided, plan to dramatically expand the shipping terminal on Roberts Bank. Roberts Bank is year round home to tens of thousands of birds, and transient home to millions of migratory birds, for whom the Fraser River delta is a crucial resting and fueling point on their way north and south during their annual migrations that stretch from as far as northern Alaska and eastern Russia to Chile. While “Wanderings through the delta” is not explicitly about this expansion, it is a call to know and love this area of which too few people are aware. “Wanderings through the delta” is a 2-channel video shot in the Fraser River delta in the winter. From the fog and the clarity of the light, the film draws lessons about the human relationship to the animals of the delta–above all birds–and our capacity to know about their existences. It patiently observes these animals, and the landscape where they live, as it changes before our very eyes and ears in the wake of historical and ongoing human encroachment into this ecologically important, biologically magnificent, and mostly unprotected, area. A note about the online version of this film/installation: “Wanderings….” is designed as a 2-channel video installation to be projected at large scale. As you watch this stream, imagine each image as it would be in a gallery: 8′ x 15′ at a minimum. Note: the film is shot entirely in colour–only one shot has any desaturation applied. That shot, near the middle of the film, should be obvious. Otherwise, the images that seem black and white are not: the black and white effect is produced entirely by the fog.
