VIDEO: ANNA CAMPBELL

(Image: Wrapping Diary, video still, Anna Campbell, 2007.)

Anna Campbell has a fascination with romanticizing failure and idolizing drive for its own sake. But, as we all know, romanticization has a shadow side. For Anna, that shadow rests in the space of marginalized people for whom failure is not a luxury. In an effort to challenge her fascination, Anna has used boxing as a metaphor for an ongoing series of mixed media/installation work entitled Making Contact.   To this end, she trained for one month at the all-female (trans-friendly) Toronto Newsgirls boxing gym where she created video work on-site.  The project highlights Anna’s own internal emotional/mental dialogue while simultaneously creating a third-eye perspective (critical distance). The artist’s exploration of boxing, failure and drive speaks from the vantage point of a politicization of gender and power. However, when considered from the perspective of consciousness expansion, the works potential lies in its multifaceted reflection on the use of mind (a conscious substratum or factor in the universe) - mental chatter vs. meditation, critical understanding vs. unitive understanding.  Considering this, Anna’s videos Chase, Wrapping Diary and Slow, speak to a time/space continuum that includes the dialogical nature (with self and other) of boxing as well as the meditative quality of training.   Watch video…

Anna Campbell’s installation, Getting Strong Now, from the Making Contact project, will be on view at the Second Bedroom Project Space in Chicago, from November 1st - 30th, 2008.  Anna Currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Design at Grand Valley State University.