CAMERON MACDONALD, "Liquidation," April 18 to May 1, 2008, The Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria
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"Liquidation"
Cameron MacDonald, "Liquidation," 2008, installation review, The Ministry of Casual Living.
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"Liquidation"
Cameron MacDonald, "Liquidation," 2008, installation review, The Ministry of Casual Living.
CAMERON MACDONALD, Liquidation
The Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria
April 18 to May 1, 2008
By Brian Grison
Cameron MacDonald's exhibition of over 700 labeled cans, ranging from 120 grams to 2 liters, was set up on the floor and against the walls of the Ministry of Casual Living, a 12- by 12-foot gallery space in Victoria. Viewable only through the gallery's single window, the display mimicked a typical big-box store display — shelves and pyramids of canned fish lined the walls and rose from the painted concrete floor.
MacDonald’s imaginary products consist of a motley assortment of 25 different tide-pool, prehistoric, and so-called garbage fish — diced coelacanth and hagfish, remora soup. MacDonald invites us to visualize dinner in a world without salmon, halibut, cod or tuna, all those top-of-the-food-chain fish that we’ve mistakenly assumed to be in infinite supply.
Among current dilemmas that vie for public and government attention under the broad social/political umbrella of "saving the world," MacDonald puts disappearing fish near the top of the list. He’s concerned about the fish, not only as an essential part of the human diet, but as essential to the life of the planet.
MacDonald's fascination with fish began when he was a teenage volunteer at the Vancouver Aquarium. An environmental activist concerned with finding practical ways to diminish the human footprint on earth, MacDonald has developed a personal way of life that is a public act of food conservation, and this work extends from that. His experiences made him wonder about the wholesale corporate over-fishing of the world’s oceans, and to take the thought a step further.
A viewer describes the exhibition as simultaneously ‘witty and chilling.’ MacDonald has created seemingly accurate label information and illustrations that resemble conventional canned food. With about two dozen invented names, he’s created canning and marketing companies, ingredient descriptions and nutrition information — though the products are hardly pretty or palatable. He embeds health warnings and fish scarcity news in the invented texts, information that could be applied to almost any canned fish we can purchase today at any supermarket.
With Liquidation, MacDonald does an end-run around the quality of obtuseness that makes much current political art impenetrable. There are no indecipherable quasi-manifestos to be read in order to understand the work. MacDonald engages viewers with clear and simple messages that reach right into our kitchens.
