Artist Nicole Dextras has been producing remarkable visual art since her graduation from Emily Carr Institute in 1986, where she continues to teach part-time. Her studio is on Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia, and she has played an important role in founding the BC Book Arts Guild and the Artists and Artisans of Granville Island. Ms. Dextras was kind enough to give Tango-Echo a few moments of her time to offer some insight to her work.
JF: In the introduction to the collection of ephemeral image you state, “These images speak to the temporal quality of our lives and our relationship to the environment.” While many relationships, living situations, jobs, and just the seasons of life in general are temporary, there is permanence in change. That is, change is the only constant, the only thing which is permanent. Is there anything in these images that you believe to be constant or permanent, and how is this reflected in these images?
ND: The subjects of my photographs are by and large ephemeral, that is to say they are in a constant state of flux. They either grow, melt or decompose over time. I consider myself both a sculptor and a photographer, and I have a great passion for environmental art.
The intention behind my work is to foster an awareness of nature because it is the single most important step towards helping our planet. Since the age of reason we often get bogged down in creating laws and governance but we never overcome our need to control. By exploring the temporality of all things and the constant of change, I hope to demonstrate the parallel between human beings and the ecosystem. We are fundamentally living breathing organisms, but in North American culture we have invested a lot of time and energy trying to prove that we are above that. People don’t want to change their behavior, even if it means killing the ecosystem- they would rather think that they can fix the problem later. Sometimes I wonder how many hurricanes, floods, and volcanoes it is going to take for us to realize that change is the way of the world and nature is the one calling the shots.
JF: Upon reviewing the images under the Iceworks Winter catalog, the articles of clothing seem to be caught in motion. An abrupt stoppage of movement has taken over any previous activity, freezing it in place for the winter, but only for a season, until the spring melts away the ice and life picks up again where it originally left off. This implication suggests that the temporal life is the winter months and that the spring summer and fall are permanent months, only pausing briefly during the icing of the season. This idea, however, is contradictory to the idea of temporal life mentioned in the introduction. Is there any suggestion in these images that life continues on after we are halted due to winter, sleep, war, or illness, and does the melting of the ice suggest our triumph over these impediments?
ND: The idea behind the frozen garments is a poetic expression of the ephemeral; the audience brings its own meaning to it. Some may see them as frozen in time, only to await a release come spring. Others interpret these images as ghosts or apparitions. I personally seem them as our outer shell, the mask we wear to define ourselves. The sun piercing through the ice is like an x-ray, exposing the delicate seams of our inner being. It is like that moment in time when we see ourselves as we really are—flaws and all—when the bubble of our outer persona has burst. We don’t usually go there, because it just makes us depressed, but I think there is much beauty in the transparent, genuine self. This is why my images are bursting with color and movement.
JF: The Weedrobes series offers an interesting comment on fashion and society. What was the impetus behind this, and is there a social commentary to be found in the concept of the Weedrobes?
The Weedrobes series has the same fundamental concept behind it as the frozen garments, but it is less abstract and more forthright. It deals with the issue of clothing as our way of projecting a fabricated image onto the world. In the past I had toyed with the idea of being a fashion photographer, but I knew deep down that I did not agree with many aspects of the fashion industry, such as the anorexic models, the hype of brand names, and the pollution caused by the textile industry. I now make my own ephemeral garments out of leaves and flowers as a counterpoint to the relentless bombardment of fashion culture in our lives. My last garment, Invasive Species, was planned as a performance where the model wearing the dress made of branches and leaves talked to people on the street about where their clothes were manufactured, what the fabric content was and their brand loyalty. I plan to do more of these in the future and I look forward to taking my Weedrobes to the fashion districts of the city.
JF: One of the more interesting collections displayed on your website is the collection titled Re-Claimed. Here, you document the “dehumanization inherent in the conformity and greed of mass consumerism” with images of goods that have been disposed of carelessly and improperly. The desire to consume these goods provides the masses with a sense of identity; albeit false, it is still a sense of connection—something tangible that speaks to others about how we want to be viewed by society. What message are you trying to convey with this connection to identity and consumerism?
ND: I have a passion for photographing discarded objects and the inherent pathos in them, but I am moving more towards environmental art now. I am still very interested in the aspect of consumerism you mentioned so I chose to tackle the question in light of my newer work. This work will be featured prominently on my new web site but for the moment it only lives on my Flickr site.
JF: What are your thoughts on this need to over consume?
ND: I recently did a series of ice text installations where I took time-lapse photos of the ice melting to create a video. One of my favorites was the word Consume. It was located on the waterfront overlooking the high density development of the city. As the word melted over the course of the day, far in the background a crane whirled, completing yet one more high-rise. As an environmental artist I feel it is important to address the issue of consumerism today. Like so many things that start out as good wholesome needs in people such as our desire to share and trade goods, we in North America have amplified it into an acquisition frenzy. We have based our entire economy and identity on the basis of being a consumer culture. Shopping is our national pastime, and we do it because it is fun to acquire new things but we are doing so at an alarming rate and without a thought for the consequences. One of my favorite videos is The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. It is an entertaining and educational video that lays out the reasons we should be aware of our consumer habits. It is only one small voice trying to be heard within the cacophony of growth that surrounds us. A few weeks ago, while I was taking photos of Consume on the sidewalk, a man approached me and said “We don’t have time to wait for a slow change in consciousness about this issue, the damage from our consumption is growing exponentially”. He may be right but all I have is one little voice. We need more voices.
JF: Does your work with these pieces imply that we are disposing of our values along with our materials, and does this cast us further away from possessing the empathy we need to help others in our society and the world?
ND: One of the major questions I have been asking myself for years is “why don’t people care?” The answer to this is very complex but it boils down to our egotistical and self-indulgent nature. We start out that way as children and are supposed to mature over time. What we need is a new definition of maturity, one that holds wisdom while keeping a flexible open mind. In the past, values where taught to us by our elders, but too often they were shoved down our throats, so we rebelled against the status quo. It has left us rudderless, without clear values to aspire to. Many are attempting to fill this void with a return to right wing family values, but I believe this to be misguided, because the only true way to creating empathy is through understanding and by advocating critical thinking. For many people it is easier to be a lazy sheep and simply follow a narrow path even if it means that we are fueling a polarized society instead of a tolerant one. We need to make examining the world around us more interesting, which is why I choose to stand on sidewalks with melting words engaging with regular people. My hope as an artist is to break down the pristine white walls of the gallery and take it to the streets.
Check out more of Nicole’s work at Nicole Dextras.com.
