Gradlife

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I recently spent some time at the  Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (located at Hart House) to check out their latest exhibit, I Thought There Were Limits.  This exhibit “brings together five Toronto-based artists whose work engages with both the material and conceptual dimensions of space” (Exhibit brochure). Coming towards the end of my program, I myself have been considering how spaces change based on time, and our own perceptions of how we fit (or don’t fit) into them.

Accompanied by a colleague (and close friend) on our gallery visit, she mentioned her own anxieties about graduating from University (again). Anxious about losing access to certain spaces on campus, we found ourselves exploring some old stomping grounds, or new ones that we felt pressured to see (mostly because we hadn’t seen them before, and what a shame that is!).

 

We asked the front desk at Hart House just when exactly we will be shut-out of using the gym. We were told that it was not until May 2-4 that we would be required to pay for an additional membership. That’s still more than a month away, but perhaps a little closer than either of us would like to admit. 

 

At the gallery, it was Kika Thorne’s piece, Singularity (2007) that spoke to me. The sculpture itself depends its relationship with the room, or the “structural elements of the site” (Exhibit brochure). Although this piece has been shown in other spaces, it was never exactly the same, as its tensions rely on the cables, which rely on the space it inhabits. I thought about this in relation to myself, and how we assume different identities based on where we are, who we are there with, and what the space permits us to be. 

 

Although I will not undergo a radical change come convocation, my ability to define myself as Grad Student, as a Gradlife blogger, and ultimately someone who is successful at what I do is going to change.

My identity now depends on success in the next realm, and it requires a re-shift and re-focus. And that is a tough task ahead–but I am, and we are all capable. We humans are all perpetual shape-shifters, just waiting for the next room we can transform and take comfort in–the real trick is to find pleasure in the transformation.