DEREK COULOMBE | FLOWERS RECLINE, After S.B. 1953
6 JULY 2018 – 27 JULY, 2018
DEREK COULOMBE | FLOWERS RECLINE, After S.B. 1953
PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NORTH YORK ARTS AND CULTURAL FESTIVAL
The artwork is a text piece consisting of twenty images wheat-pasted out of sequence throughout Mel Lastman Square. The sentence that the work presents is borrowed from Samuel Beckett’s 1954 novel The Unnamable and it reads: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” Each of the letters are a standalone image, as well as the two apostrophes and the comma. Derek chose this excerpt because for me it is an expression of deep resilience and tenacity—a quiet affirmation of life in the face of insurmountable threat, hardship, and tragedy.
As visitors to the festival walk through the park, they will be free to grow curious about the letter forms they encounter and engage in a scavenger hunt throughout the space. The anagram found, if rearranged, will reveal the contained phrase to them in full.
DEREK COULOMBE is an artist and writer based in Toronto where he is currently a candidate in the practice-based Ph.D. program in the Department of Visual Arts and Art History at York University. He also holds a BFA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. His practice mobilizes found photography and written narratives to form a series of oblique studies—their breadth spanning his stories of conflict, alpine skiing, and other odder athleticism(s).