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Brandon Vickerd
Challenger

2017

About the Item

Challenger consists of a replica of the escape hatch from the NASA space shuttle installed as if it has fallen from the sky and flattened a Canada Post mailbox. The sculpture explores the relationship between humanity’s technological aspirations and the impact failure has on our collective psyche. The narrative of a space aged machine violently colliding with the mundane street furniture highlights how our collective aspirations for space travel often make us blind to the physical world we inhabit. Challenger invokes nostalgia for a past, when science held the promise of a limitless future, and not the very strange and often frightening world of tomorrow we find ourselves living in today. Purposely diverse, my work straddles the line between high and low culture, acting as a catalyst for critical thought and addressing the failed promise of a modernist future predicated on boundless scientific advancement. Whether through craftsmanship, the creation of spectacle, or humor, my goal is to provoke the viewer into questioning the dominate myth of progress ingrained in Western world views. Brandon Vickerd is a Hamilton based artist and Professor of Sculpture at York University, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Visual Arts and Art History. He received his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1999) and his MFA from the University of Victoria (2001). He has been invited to several solo and group exhibitions at national and international level. His research work has been supported by numerous Canada Council grants.
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