Penance For Environmental Destruction: Gareth Bate

Penance is intended to represent a bizarre act of self-punishment and humiliation for the guilt of environmental destruction. MY WEBSITE: http://www.garethbate.com

CREDITS:
Artist & Performer: Gareth Bate
Street Filming: Saglara Kitchikova
Studio & Country Filming: Gareth Bate
Editing: Gareth Bate
Special Thanks: Carolyn Dinsmore & Georgina Neville

WATCH IN HQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ona1xpDnRr8&fmt=18

ARTIST STATEMENT:
An anonymous blog commenter has come the closest to the essence of Penance:

"If he had attempted to cross the street and succeeded it would have given us hope. If he attempted and failed he would have been looked upon as a martyr and inspired others. But to make no attempt at all to cross the street, and to actually retreat displays the reality of contemporary thinking about our environment, ie, it's not worth taking the chance."

I am an artist based in Toronto, Canada. The performance video Penance is intended to represent a bizarre act of self-punishment and humiliation for the guilt of environmental destruction. It also captures a sense of helplessness in the face of the overwhelming accumulation of problems facing the world. What can I do? I see this act as half serious and half ridiculous. I crawled on my stomach with a reconstructed field of grass on my back along Torontos Queen Street West starting at Soho Street. When I reached the busy intersection of Spadina Avenue I was faced with the dilemma of taking it to the next level and crossing the street, or turning back. Rather than take the risk, like our society I crawled backwards instead. After two painful and tiring hours I had to give up. The Penance video moves back and forth between the agonizing performance, the bewildered response of onlookers, and contemplative scenes of gleaning grass in the countryside. Reconstructing the body piece out of grass gleaned from the countryside was itself a reflective act. Agnès Vardas beautiful film The Gleaners and I was an inspiration for the gleaning process. Penance is my first performance and is best understood within the context of my paintings, installations and videos.

See the still photos from PENANCE...
http://www.garethbate.com/artwork_pages/penance_performance.html

PRESS:
Penance was reviewed in the canada's national newspaper the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Checkerspot a Climate Change magazine, Toronto's Xtra, L'Express, Metropolitain and SNAP newspapers. In Nov. 2007 Penance was the 12th most discussed YouTube video for its category in Canada.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Environmental
• Climate
• Change
• documentary
• Global
• Warming
• Humiliation
• Punishment
• Performance
• Art
• Toronto
• Street
• Catholic
• Penance
• Suffering
• Grass
• Queen
• West
• Nuit
• Blanche

[meganleighambas]

this is tooooo good

[garethbate]

Thanks!

What did you like about it?

[AquarielCharm]

Was that you Gareth doing the crawling? That took a lot of courage to do. But I shudder to think of the germs & bacteria that latched on to you.

[garethbate]

haha. The sidewalk is pretty gross I must admit.

[chariebobarie]

When I first watched this I was really concerned on how you managed to cross the street! Was there any particular reason why you chose soho - spadina? or was it because of the popularity of the location?

[garethbate]

Hi, Thanks for commenting. I actually chose that stretch of Queen Street for a few reasons. Between Soho and Spadina there are no cross streets so I could crawl the whole way. The sidewalk is really wide so I wouldnt get walked on, and it is also really commercial and trendy so I thought it would have a funny reaction. And it is also close to the Art Gallery of Ontario and Ontario College of Art & Design - so it is somewhat arty. Doing it in a different neighbourhood would have been different.

[livinginleftfield]

Gareth, congradulations and thank you so very much.

Sincerely

jason collette

[noclimatechange]

The feeling is mutual. Once again, I've read Heat. He writes for the Guardian. It is not even about the science of climate change it is about solving the problem. I don't disagree with everything he is saying I think some of those measures would be a good idea. I'm not denying that we should cut down on pollution. I'm just saying climate change is a hoax. That's all.

[marshmelodyribbit]

CHECK OUT THESE HEADINGS : MOFFAT CREEK , DOUG CRAIG IN CAMBRIDGE , AND WEST GALT GEM .

THE MAYOR PUSHEED TO HAVE A SEWER PIPE INSIDE A DRINKING WATER SOURCE. HUNDREDS OF TREES , FISH , CREATURES DELIBERATELY MURDERED .......THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS AND ENDANGERED SPECIES ACTS , ETC. IGNORED. THE PROCESS MADE A MOCKERY BECAUSE THEY LIED TO THE PUBLIC. iNSIDE THE SCHOOLCHILDREN LEARN THE IMPORTANCE OF WETLANDS WHILE OUTSIDE THE YARE BEING RAAZED.

[ARTSTARSTV]

Garbage.

[hfyd2]

wats a penance

[ozbamagirl]

nice

[Desisbrother]

Wow, this is getting popular. Nearly 3000 views that is great.

[sparks2303]

That's what's great about them though. If they looked good all the time, the moment wouldn't be so special...

And when you see it happen, you say to yourself 'Wow, I'm in the right place, at exactly the right moment'.