Wildflowers of Manitoba is a performative installation of four short films and sound presented in a furnished geodesic dome. The films feature four young men living off the grid in an idealistic survivalist camp on the shores of lake Winnipeg during the summer of 2006. The loosely scripted scenes establish a naturalist idyll seemingly removed form modernity. Like wildflowers, the male subjects are intimately tied to a seductive meadow that is bordered by abandoned railway tracks and virgin beaches. Staged for the camera, the set and subjects evoke a distant, more innocent era where alternative, collective lifestyles flourished. The music by visionary seventies Québécois rock band Harmonium suggest the potential for sexual and political freedom. Noam Gonick and Luis Jacob's young male subjects perform homosocial activity to achieve spiritual transcendence. While an intense presence is projected by each body on screen, the subjects lose their theatrical pretense when dwarfed against the Canadian landscape of water, sky, rocks and bush. The effect is an unpretentious filmic experience that urges you to fantasize a sequel.
Wayne Baerwaldt, Curator
Performer: Alex Duffy
