ELYSE JOHNSON

The Silver Screen is a body of work created in the Bay of Fundy made possible by the 2015 Wilder Traveling Scholarship Grant. Located on the Canadian Atlantic coast, the Bay of Fundy is home to the highest vertical tides in the world. In this series of brief performative videos, Johnson investigates the effects of contemporary technological progress on mankind's perspective of life on earth, specifically in light of natural phenomenon. In this newer, sleeker culture, our natural environment seems increasingly alien. As society continues to develope and challenge our understanding of our relationship with the natural world, we witness evidence of a larger conversation between human beings and the earth. We spend most of this dialogue reorganizing the land, building on top of it, redistributing it, dividing it. The Bay of Fundy is a powerful instance in which the land rearranges itself. In each performance, Johnson wears a silver skin suit in an attempt to illustrate a physical separation from nature. The repeated uniform is meant to stand as a layer between the land and identity. It serves to contextualize the performer in the environment. The color silver has a feminine energy; it is related to the moon, the ebb and flow of the tides- it is fluid, emotional, sensitive, and mysterious. Silver has also taken on a newer, more industrial context in contemporary society. Silver is intended to signify a conceptual camouflage in the context of progress. It does not, however, function as camouflage within the literal environment. Visually, silver was doing something much different. The suit is intended to act as a physical barrier between the environment and the performer- a “screen”. The term “the silver screen” was originally made popular in the times of early motion pictures. The term connotes film as an industry, the conscious progressive and industrial nature of all things in the hands of mankind.

The Silver Screen, Elyse Johnson, 2015

Aging, Elyse Johnson, 2017