“THE PINE BEETLES ARE COMING”, presented at the Lumspace Gallery at the University of British Columbia in November 2007, was a gallery exhibition I spearheaded with the participation of a handful of Vancouver artists. I organized the construction of a large-scale site-specific installation to compliment a showcase of new mixed-media paintings of my own and of a colleague, Alistair Knowles.

What followsis an excerpt of the exhibition statement:

The Mountain Pine Beetle, indigenous to western North America, has taken a grip on the forests of British Columbia. In the past, the cold Canadian winter has acted to regulate beetle populations, but with global warming driving up winter temperatures, this equilibrium has been breached. Surveys show the beetles, in just the last few years, have grown to overtake 21 million acres and killed 410 million cubic feet of trees in B.C. Studies consistently verify a direct correlation between warmer winter climate change and the spread of the beetle infestation. The Canadian Forest Service calls it “the largest known insect infestation in North American history.”

From the vantage point of the metropolitan city, these developments can seem deceptively intangible. The daily monotony of routine city life- the same monotony which stifles our imagination and saps dry our creative passions- also provides a convenient façade of stability, progress, and normalcy in which we may continue to carry out atrocities on the natural world. The consequences are simply swept under the proverbial rug, and the apocalypse is postponed to a date more convenient, someday in the future. This process of habitual detachment and alienation impacts not only our relationship to the environment, but the relationships we have with others and likewise, with ourselves.

If anything, THE PINE BEETLES ARE COMING is simply an exploration of these issues, in the form of a site-specific installation. Perhaps also, it functions to critique the prevailing economic and social customs which make possible the aforementioned perversions. Probably more likely, it could just briefly bring you out of your daily rut and cause you to reconsider what is actually possible given an old room, some garbage, and an impending sense of doom.

what is sacred, and what is waste? what belongs in a gallery, and what belongs in the trash?

Note: No pine beetles were harmed in the making of this production.