Alisdair MacRae MFA

<< >>

Born August 27, 1974 in Dawson Creek, BC, I moved to Vancouver Island with my family as I turned one year old. Following graduation from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, I worked as a civilian for the Department of National Defence. Concurrently, I decided to undertake a Master’s of Fine Arts degree at Bard College in up-state New York. I attended three summer sessions at Bard College and finished in 2002. After graduating from Bard, I decided to re-locate to New York to maintain the friends I had made in the program and experience living in a different part of the world. I have managed to find a job as an administrator for a student work-study program at Seton Hall University in New Jersey where I commute to from my apartment in Brooklyn.

Artist Statement:

I am interested in notions of community, and how one uses plans to make an object, and join a community through its exchange. As the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, my desire for following plans to make things involves many pragmatic decisions. When proposing exchange, I use common means such as bulletin board postings, raffles and charge for the cost of materials. The perceived community I want to join dictates which plans I choose, how I follow them and how the object finds its way out of my studio. The perceived community consists of two or more people, including myself. If only a few casual words are exchanged, I consider the project a success.

I am perhaps more interested in how none of this is straightforward. Whether my name gets misspelled, my identity mistaken, or my access across a border nearly denied, there is richness to the plan gone awry, the uneasy exchange and the awkward sensibility. A similar quality of life cannot be found upon entering the most regal appointment, exclusive engagement nor secret society. Instead, one reveals the richness to every aspect of life upon acceptance into a community of one; one’s inner community.