Project Description:
I AM THE PROBLEM is one of my current projects that I performed at Nuit Blanche in downtown Toronto on October second this year. I AM THE PROBLEM is a visual statement of the negative feelings I have about the current state of the environment due to human activity in North America. The pollution of the earth has continued to worsen since the industrial revolution but The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has brought me to make this piece. Since late June of this year when the crude oil started to flow from a sea floor, I have felt incapable as an individual to fix this catastrophic issue. This performance not only physically exerted my anger about the pollution, but also was presented in a way that my physical actions mimicked how the oil is slowing effecting the earth and habitats.
During the performance, I dragged a black bag behind me with a rope. The bag was to represent “oil” and the rope was to show my struggle. For four hours and nineteen minutes, I trekked silently past the cars on the streets and pedestrians on the sidewalks. In the bag was sixteen gallons of “oil.” It seeped out of the bag from a tube, leaving a black line on the sidewalk behind me. Sewn on the outside of the bag in white text are the words, I AM THE PROBLEM, which effectively caused the viewers to interact with the performance by reading this. From here, the viewers related themselves to me as a performer and figured out the relationship between “the problem” and themselves. The performance was concluded when I could no longer carry the bag and myself.
