This, I Build For You, 2013

David R. Harper - Toronto, Canada

Performance and Installation

Part installation, part performance, this work invites the viewer to observe as a 20-foot monument becomes adorned with pattern and ornamentation. The intricate act of the artist’s hand embroidering throughout the night is projected on the blank face of the monument's base. This durational performance is inspired by the myriad ways that we commemorate as a society. By juxtaposing the intimate act of embroidery with the cold surface of the monument, this work discusses the dichotomy of public memory and private meditation. Eventually filling the monument with decoration and layered meanings, the viewer is asked to contemplate our public monuments and consider the ways in which we encounter them as individuals.

The result is a haunting experience wherein feelings of loss and gain are literally being worked through. This project invites viewers to think about their relationships to our public monuments and our own feelings of remembrance and celebration.

David R. Harper was born in Toronto and currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. He received a BFA in 2006 from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Canada including Oh, Canada at MASS MoCA, and Builders at the National Gallery of Canada and is represented by MKG 127 (Toronto, ON)

Learn More

www.davidrharper.com/

68

Queens Park Crescent East & Grosvenor Street

This project is outdoors.