JESSIE KOBYLANSKI
Sustain, 2020
video and mixed media
6:00
290 3rd Avenue
Jessie Kobylanski’s new work made for Luminocity 2020, Sustain, is a response to undefinable yet palpable temporal shifts brought on by the global pandemic. The installation incorporates a video taken by her young son, capturing an everyday moment during an unusual time. The video was mistakenly shot on a slow-motion setting, creating both a sense of humour and unintentional majesty. Kobylanski’s installation reflects on how this period of global shutdown has allowed for a new consideration of the mundane, with a focus on the home and a new appreciation for what is in front of you, in the face of fear and uncertainty.
The verb “to sustain” means to strengthen or support physically or mentally, to undergo or suffer (something unpleasant, especially an injury). Whereas the noun “sustain” refers to the effect or facility on a keyboard or electronic instrument whereby a note can be sustained after the key is released.
Her work plays with the concept of “sustaining” by pointing to the way in which tension builds without a climax; in the video, there is no narrative ark, it is just a moment in time. In the context of the pandemic, there is also no resolution in sight and we remain in a liminal state of suspension.
Jessie Kobylanski is the co-owner/operator of Barnacle Records, Kamloops, BC. An entrepreneur and a mother of two, Kobylanski maintains an art practice primarily focused on digital and three dimensional collage. Her work explores the dualistic nature of harmony as it relates to vanitas, mother and child, domesticity and the natural degradation of memory. Through a process-based practice, she endeavours to reconcile her identity as a woman and mother within the spaces she occupies.
Jessie Kobylanski
Sustain, 2020
video and mixed media
courtesy of Enda McGrath
Photos: Frank Luca