Penance For Environmental Destruction: Gareth Bate
Penance is intended to represent a bizarre act of self-punishment and humiliation for the guilt of environmental destruction. MY WEBSITE: www.garethbate.com CREDITS Artist & Performer: Gareth Bate Street Filming: Saglara Kitchikova Studio & Country Filming: Gareth Bate Editing: Gareth Bate Special Thanks: Carolyn Dinsmore & Georgina Neville WATCH IN HQ www.youtube.com ARTIST STATEMENT: An anonymous blog commenter has come the closest to the essence of Penance: “If he had attempted to cross the street and succeeded it would have given us hope. If he attempted and failed he would have been looked upon as a martyr and inspired others. But to make no attempt at all to cross the street, and to actually retreat displays the reality of contemporary thinking about our environment, ie, it’s not worth taking the chance.” I am an artist based in Toronto, Canada. The performance video Penance is intended to represent a bizarre act of self-punishment and humiliation for the guilt of environmental destruction. It also captures a sense of helplessness in the face of the overwhelming accumulation of problems facing the world. What can I do? I see this act as half serious and half ridiculous. I crawled on my stomach with a reconstructed field of grass on my back along Torontos Queen Street West starting at Soho Street. When I reached the busy intersection of Spadina Avenue I was faced with the dilemma of taking it to the next level and crossing the street, or turning back. Rather than …
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Noclimatechange. I Watched it. Give me a break. One photos scandal does not disprove thousands of separately conducted experiments and research done around the globe. All this proves is that photography lies. That is hardly a new discovery. Sure you can say that it is wrong to use a photo that was taken in summer but if it illustrates a problem then who cares when the photo was taken.
Ozbamagirl. Typical. You people always want “evidence” but then you get it and you deny it. So it is ok to use false photographs to make your point? Shameful. It is even an Australian source, I thought you would appreciate that.
I did appreciate the Australian source. Thanks.
I try.
Goodnight Ozbamagirl. I’ll have more climate change destroying evidence for you tomorrow.
You are leaving? I was enjoying our discussion. poo. Oh well. I’ll just have to arm myself for the next round tomorrow. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
This is just getting strange now.
I’m sensing some flirtation going on. I’d advise you to hook up but you are on different continents I believe…
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings have been publicly endorsed by the national academies of science of all G-8 countries, as well as those of China, India and Brazil. Climate change skeptics or “deniers” are not climate scientists and do not debate the science with the climate scientists directly, for example, by publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals or participating in international conferences on climate science.
Gareth, congradulations and thank you so very much.
Sincerely
jason collette
Pointless. Just living in this unnatural, high-stress world is penance enough.
How is making an artwork pointless? I think you are taking the act a bit too literally. Why would you say it is pointless?
I agree. There is nothing “pointless” about this.
That’s because you failed to notice I was commenting on modern life.
Great!!!
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When I first watched this I was really concerned on how you managed to cross the street! Was there any particular reason why you chose soho – spadina? or was it because of the popularity of the location?
Hi, Thanks for commenting. I actually chose that stretch of Queen Street for a few reasons. Between Soho and Spadina there are no cross streets so I could crawl the whole way. The sidewalk is really wide so I wouldnt get walked on, and it is also really commercial and trendy so I thought it would have a funny reaction. And it is also close to the Art Gallery of Ontario and Ontario College of Art & Design – so it is somewhat arty. Doing it in a different neighbourhood would have been different.
That’s what’s great about them though. If they looked good all the time, the moment wouldn’t be so special…
And when you see it happen, you say to yourself ‘Wow, I’m in the right place, at exactly the right moment’.
Wow, this is getting popular. Nearly 3000 views that is great.
nice
Was that you Gareth doing the crawling? That took a lot of courage to do. But I shudder to think of the germs & bacteria that latched on to you.
wats a penance
this is tooooo good
Thanks!
What did you like about it?
haha. The sidewalk is pretty gross I must admit.
Garbage.
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THE MAYOR PUSHEED TO HAVE A SEWER PIPE INSIDE A DRINKING WATER SOURCE. HUNDREDS OF TREES , FISH , CREATURES DELIBERATELY MURDERED …….THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS AND ENDANGERED SPECIES ACTS , ETC. IGNORED. THE PROCESS MADE A MOCKERY BECAUSE THEY LIED TO THE PUBLIC.
iNSIDE THE SCHOOLCHILDREN LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF WETLANDS WHILE OUTSIDE THE YARE BEING RAAZED.