when the wind shifted
a site specific installation
Toronto, Nuit Blanche – Sept 2006
curated by Kim Simon

Ontario Power Generation, 700 University Avenue (at College Street)
[In association with Ontario Power Generation].

Interacting directly with the urban environment, multiple projections imagined 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 created 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.”

Installation details (nuit blanche website)