Artist Talk Friday April 23 at 5:30 pm
Followed by opening at 8:00 pm

This body of work that began with a photograph depicting a family-planning class at Tantallon Junior High School sometime in the early 1990s. The photo—from the archives of the artist’s late father—depicts nearly two dozen teenage students, a teacher, a baby and a mother. MacLean restaged the image, prolonging an instant to describe a class in its entirety. The performance took place in the original school and classroom and, from this
reenactment, MacLean developed paintings, sculpture and a silent film laced with the awkward humour of its subject matter. The film’s cast includes Halifax performance artist Veronique MacKenzie, dancer Sara Harrigan (Mocean Dance) and artist Suzanne Caines,
among others.

“It was important that my characters be strong, recognizable cultural figures who deal with
concepts similar to my own,” says MacLean.

"Some people leave and you don’t know where they are. But you think that they used to be where you are now. In any case, you use your mind, you sit, and you think about it really hard. But then you feel anxious and you decide that the longer you wait, the further they’re getting away from you.
You notice a stone and you see a hole where the stone used to be. You know that the stone has moved and you believe that The People have moved. You use your imagination until you’ve got direction. And then you leave." Statement- Aaron Weldon MacLean