Gwen MacGregor

excerpt from The Thin Red Line

The Thin Red Line
(after Terence Malick and Rebecca Belmore)

video

video loop, 4 minutes, 2014; exhibited at MKG127, Toronto, 2015

The reflection of a British Columbia mountain shimmers in a crystal clear lake. Once every two minutes a red kayak goes by on the bottom of the screen. What appears as a small picturesque video has a big weighty title. This work intentionally plays with the audience’s expectations of a pretty landscape. The title refers to films by Malick and Belmore that address war and injustice over land. Watch again, perhaps the little red kayak cutting across the image isn’t quite as picturesque this time.