Christina Battle
Projection installation
Interacting directly with the urban environment, multiple projections imagine the moment a small corner of the city is overtaken by the natural world. Inspired by Toronto's now unforgettable aphid infestation of August 2001, a series of outdoor projections create moments of a shift in the balance between natural and urban environments. Situated in a neighbourhood currently undergoing economic growth and expansion, Battle's presentation of an encroaching natural world reminds that its power is as transformative as that of urban development.
As noted by Henriette Huldisch in the 2006 Whitney Biennial Catalogue, "Christina Battle takes a physical, painterly approach to her medium: shooting on 16mm film stock, she processes the works by hand using custom-made chemicals and subsequently continues to alter the developed film by colour toning, painting, or dunking it in solution. Interested in evoking a charged emotional register, she treats the celluloid strip as though applying layers of paint to canvas until the texture and surface of the original photographic imagery are profoundly transformed by the traces of her manual manipulations."
With degrees in both environmental biology and visual arts, filmmaker Christina Battle has been an active member of the Toronto experimental film community since 1996.
In association with Ontario Power Generation.
Image: Still from buffalo lifts, Christina Battle, June 2004
Map location 1
Ontario Power Generation, 700 University Avenue (at College Street)
