Statement 2019
Transcription of the statement for the 21st Biennial
The reason why a gun store, and particularly this one, in Maine, is because back in summer 2016 I was at an artist residency in the town of Skowhegan in Maine. The little town had at least three gun shops in and around it, and it was legal to buy guns in that state. Around that time, the Orlando nightclub shooting happened, I was compelled to take my studio elsewhere, “to hang out in the space of the other.”. I went to another gun shop at first, and told them I wanted to film there, and they were open to the idea. But then I stumbled upon Staples Gun Shop, went inside and had a conversation with the two men there, Bruce and Bailey. Our exchange was marked by tension, chemistry, suspicion, and curiosity, and I realized I should keep coming back.
“Are you going to make us look bad?" was one of their concerns when I first walked into their gun shop. I find that to be a significant question because it acknowledges the impressionistic differences at play in our first encounter and the possible enmity that might follow, but it also solicits a different trajectory: are you going to document your prejudiced conception of us or will you get to know and interact with us further before you picture us? My reply at the time was that making them look bad was easy and I am not interested in that; instead, I am curious about the gun culture. With this, a pact of sorts was in place. I then spent weeks with Bruce and Bailey, reading, eating, and shooting (guns and scenes); something between us was forged.
When it comes to the social engagement of it, I do not see the work objective per se, but it can address audiences on either end of the spectrum. Perhaps it’s a warped objectivity, because on the one hand the text reinforces their beliefs, they speak its intentionality, and on the other hand they criticize it and wonder about a “solution” for the friend/enemy distinction. As in the montage, sometimes their voice is at times dubbed with Schmitt’s text, at others dubbing that very text.
Other important thing is this movie, due its cinematographic and documental character, outside the movie theater. In other iterations, the film is part of an installation, triangulated with a firing range target perforated by bullets I shot and a mirror sculpture that reads in reverse: "The Enemy is the Embodiment of Your Own Question," a quote by Schmitt. The firing range target, signed and dated by Bruce, becomes a contract of the exchange: they took me to the shooting range and taught me how to shoot different types of guns and I asked them to read Schmitt's text. The inversion and reflection of the mirror sculpture create an entanglement of subjectivity, simultaneously othering (with inversion the text is read legibly from the other side) and extending one's own subjectivity (viewers see their reflection in the sculpture).