PAM PATTERSON explores mortality in her work "Travelling", presented at Fleishman Gallery

> PAM PATTERSON: TRAVELLING

Presented at WonderWorks Fleishman Gallery from June 20^th to June 30^th

^{Performance and Opening Reception Friday June 20th 7 – 9pm}

The shift from being one person to being another person is what I call travel... Those of us who are “world” travellers have the distinct experience of being different in different “worlds”... The attitude that carries us through is [a] playful [one]... We are not worried about competence. We are not wedded to a particular way of doing things. We are there creatively... (Lugones 1990: 396)

Travelling as exhibit/performance continues my work in and around mortality. As a person who has chronic health issues and is mobility challenged, travel is a difficult and problematic task. Travel, though, also implies for me, an informed action, a journey of re-discovery, re-historicizing, a ritual re-making. The site is the body - my body. Projected mages of my feet moving in and through various locations mark like various biopsies my "travel" through and past these issues. At the opening, I will perform an action/exchange, I will take up this investigation as a "dance" and in dialogue. To accomplish this, I have traveled to London, UK, St. John's, Newfoundland, and into the body - my body - in play as I continue to reconfigure the self.

Pam Patterson has, for 25 years, been active in the health, art and women’s communities. Her research, performance and teaching have focussed on embodiment in art practice, the “body” in art, women and health, disability studies, women’s studies and feminist art education. As a performance and visual artist she has exhibited and performed with Leena Raudvee in Artifacts and solo internationally. Her recent work A Cellu(H)er Resistance : A Body without Organs? was presented by FADO in Toronto 2008.