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Jennifer McMackon, Kokohala, from Kingdoms
analogue video
1999

Kokohala, the final vignette from Kingdom(s) situates the viewer as a passenger in a vehicle careening along the Coquihalla Highway. Jimmy Smith is playing on the car radio. Snow laden trees and thin blue sky swoosh past the car windows as if being pulled like scenic drapery.

This piece was part of an exhibition called Placecards at Mercer Union curated by Stacey Lancaster. She wrote of the piece:

Deftly utilizing the scene's slippery depth of field, McMackon summons an excruciating contrast; brittle snow-laden pines pierce a frigid blue sky; black, skeletal trunks impossibly precise against a cloud-smeared backdrop. Accompanied by the peppy enthusiasm of the music on the car radio, space distorts, shifting between real and miniature versions of itself. I acquiesce. I sink into the car door, drop my head against the window and succumb to McMackon's dreamy meditation.

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