Focus Jump is an outdoor animation (in both creation and display) made specifically for the unique shape of Toronto's Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. It was projected as part of the city's "Light Up The Dark" programming, in conjunction with Shezad Dawood's exhibition Midnight in the Garden of Love, inspired by, and featuring, works by the late Yusuf Lateef, Dec. 27-29, 2023.

My Artist's Statement:

Shezad Dawood’s exhibition proposes the garden as a site of “creation and optimism in the face of the climate crisis” (Wiels.org). Using the manual increments of a zoom lens, my camera's focus follows grasshoppers jumping through space, as their forms dissolve and reappear. Grasshoppers and locusts are important pollinators, symbols of both destruction and abundance and wealth. Through deep focus, they emerge from the background, becoming key ecological figures while decentering human life.

A note about the music: I designed Focus Jump with Lateef's delicate The Plum Blossom in mind. Due to licensing issues, Lateef's funky Instrumental Gospel was used for the projection.

Commissioned by The City of Toronto, The Aga Khan Museum, and OCAD University with projection mapping by AVA Animation.

I created three “Time Flies” to revisit an old film of mine for the group exhibition >>Past Forward<< at OCAD U’s Ignite Gallery, Toronto, Sept. 5 – Oct. 8, 2023.

Artist's Statement:

Second Hand (2012) is a film about time and stuff. Neighbours with opposing lifestyles highlight attitudes about disposability and consumerism.  Time Flies (2023) are static sculptures - nostalgic reminders and joyful pollinators attracted to decaying matter. Made from waste materials, these objects tell stories and mark time, while outside this gallery, a layer of human garbage covers the earth - a geologic reminder of the Anthropocene.

I created Returning for BigArtTO, a public art projection at the Princess Park Clocktower in Toronto, Nov. 3-6, 2021.

Artist’s Statement:

Returning celebrates the Day of the Dead through nature’s endless cycles of growth and decay, in vertical loops of mixed-media animation. The two faces of the Princess Park clocktower provide dramatic contrast to the living and dead planes. Every year at this time, millions of monarch butterflies migrate to Michoacán, Mexico, where they have been interpreted as souls of the departed returning to visit. In the tradition of honouring ancestors, Returning presents the resiliency of natural ecological systems, of which humans are a part. With bright colours and constant motion, curious viewers are invited to the tower to celebrate, honour, and reflect together. 

Commissioned by the City of Toronto and OCAD University with projection-mapping by AVA Animation.