Pam Patterson
(Toronto, Ontario)
Demolishing Da.. Sight (Site)
Pam Patterson with videographer John Oughton
In July 2003, I performed a work Body as Site (Sight) at Goddard College in Vermont. In this work, I looked at how I am complicit with the traditional view of women in art. As an educator at a major art museum, I interpret such works from a mainstream perspective. In this interpretation I negate my own reality as artist and woman with disability. In the performance I build and later destroy a brick wall. But what do I do with those darn bricks? How do I resituate them? Demolish them and in so doing over time allow myself to rethink my own position and responsibilities? In Demolishing Da.. Sight (Site) I intend to resituate these bricks at the sites that have significant importance in my life - my daughter’s stable, my home, in the country.... to reposition myself, guiding myself to rethink myself and my place in time and space. I will load up my wheelchair with bricks and head out from 12 noon - 9pm on Sept 27th knowing that elsewhere in the world others are sighting and re-siting.
