proximity
about: proximity studies
Proximity is a representation of Sage Sidley’s interdisciplinary Masters of Fine Arts research on the intangible transformation of public and semi-public spaces into digital data-harvesting sites and the proliferation of social surveillance practices. Through the scope of drawing, this thesis exhibition explores our digital and physical spatial interactions and the fluctuant roles of the observer and observed.
Drawing is connected to the body and space; it also represents the artist's relationship to their surroundings. Walking with an application in hand, tapping, pinching and stepping happen congruently. Our experience is manipulated through the map we are individually central to. The body experiences place through infinite planes at once.
The research and creation of this online exhibition was conducted in Mi'kma'ki, the unsurrendered and unceded land of the Mi’kmaq people. As a settler and uninvited guest on these lands, I am privileged to live, work, study, and grow here. I would like to acknowledge the importance of taking care of these lands and working towards the calls to action for Truth and Reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous peoples.
Intersections of digital and physical spaces includes addressing present colonial violence and abuse towards Indigenous peoples in Canada and globally. Land is a territorial structure of power.
In thinking about overlapping systems of place, I strive to contemplate these meanings in connection to my position and the continued colonial systems of control that are executed in digital and physical spaces alike.
Dedicated to River Sidley.
This project would not be possible without the loving support of my family and friends.
I am forever grateful of the guidance and care from my professors and advisors, Barbara Lounder, Jan Peacock, Kim Morgan, David Clark, Craig Leonard, and Solomon Nagler. With the additional teachings from Sara Hartland-Rowe, Karin Cope, Jamie Allen, and my MFA cohort and art community.
Thank you to the generosity of, the BC Arts Council, the Reznick Family, the Robert Pope Foundation, Judith Jane Leidl and the family of Doug Biden.
Special thank you to Tara Mills, Nathan Ryan, Annik Gaudet, Christopher Spencer-Lowe, Stephen Brookbank, and the NSCAD Security staff, Aldane, Steve, Jeff, and Amy. Lastly, thank you, Hannah g., Melanie Wilmink, Bernhard Garnicnig and Lucie Kolb, Caitlind Brown and Wayne Garrett, Joy Wong, Laura Millard, William Robinson, and Veronika Szkudlarek, for your insightful studio visits.
Thank you all for believing in me.
Sage Sidley is originally from Rossland, British Columbia and attained her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in visual arts and a minor in mathematics at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2016. Sidley works with ideas of place and technology in the form of expanded drawing. She has attended artist-residencies in Berlin, Germany and Inverness, Canada.