Alison MacTaggart is an artist and educator, earning her Diploma of Fine Arts from Camosun College in 1993, Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art) at Simon Fraser University in 1997, and Master of Fine Art (Visual Art) at York University in 2006. Her work is primarily sculpture and installation-based, yet incorporates elements of drawing and writing. MacTaggart has shown her work in group and solo exhibitions across Canada, and has been the recipient of numerous scholarships, grants, and awards. She has been the recipient of BC Arts Council grants, Canada Council for the Arts Emerging Artist grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) graduate award, and a three-year occupancy City of Vancouver Live/Work Studio award. MacTaggart has been an instructor at York University, Langara College, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University. ARTIST INFO: http://www.alisonmactaggart.com/ (Accessed December 28, 2016); Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/alisonmactaggart/ (Accessed December 28, 2016); Vimeo page of "Promising Objects" Installation at University of Lethbridge Art Gallery: https://vimeo.com/16514818 (Accessed December 28, 2016)
ARTIST STATEMENT: I am interested in making work that possesses the potential to initiate a more complex response from the viewer than one of immediate recognition. I use recognizable language and objects as a way of providing access to the work, with the intention that a disruptive use of these materials will allude to other possibilities. Recently [statement written by Alison MacTaggart in 1996], my work has involved an exploration of both written text and objects, not as expositional or didactic strategies, but instead as metaphor and allegory. In an earlier program of work that addressed questions of power and pedagogy it was appropriate to use written text with a somewhat ownerless and disembodied voice. This was important in representing an institutional voice that is present in relations between teachers and students. In recent work, “Re-membering Herself” and “She Imagined Her Own,” the written text I have used has become embodied with the emergence of a female subject. My interest in constructing a female subject is to imagine someone whose character is self-empowering and transgressive. For example, she is able to build her own instrument for communication (“She Imagined Her Own”), and she affirmatively ‘spits’ in inappropriate places (“Re-membering Herself”). The development of this third-person subject has been important in addressing questions of voice and female subjectivity. She is not physically represented in the work but is present through her visible absence; she is identified through written text and object choices that represent her as an ‘off-screen’ voice. As an off-screen voice she is present in the work without having to visually appear. It is important for me that the experience of my work be both challenging and pleasurable. Consequently, I find that humour and irony are useful strategies for engaging an audience in important critical questions. ABOUT THE WORK: This was the first piece in a program of work that investigates the words oral and aural, and issues of voice. The work assumes the form of a book and a commemorative case that makes both visible and monumental what ‘should’ be a discreetly performed activity. I constructed the work as a case within a book-like case, that would be presented within a display case. The inner case that holds an engraved text mirrored by a musical instrument part is intended to suggest the suppression and expression of bodily fluids and other instruments such as the voice. It is intended that the varnished medite, the red felt, and the tubular shape of the instrument part reinforce this reading and allude to questions that include the body, bodily fluids, and gender. The written text and material choices construct a female subject who asserts her presence through the metaphorical implications of spitting. DESCRIPTION: White painted wooden case containing a two-sided panel (diptych) constructed to look like a book (left and right pages with a spine joining them in the middle). On the right-hand panel a red rectangular piece of red felt is held. On the left-hand panel, a smaller hinged box is hung. In the upper portion of the smaller box a rectangular brass plaque with inscription is held. In the lower section of the smaller box a U-shaped metal musical instrument part.
