The Apology Project

Between the years of 2010 to 2017, The Apology Project was a creative collaborative project between Canadian and American artists featuring performance, visual and media art.  The production featured the writing and choreography of Canadian performer and artistic director of Pounds Per Square Inch Performance (lbs./sq”) Gerry Trentham, guided by Director, Dramaturge, and Cultural Animator Diane Roberts.  Kevin A. Ormsby, Artistic Director of KasheDance, and the Program Manager of Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Onterio (CPAMO) joined the project in 2015 and quickly became a leading performer in the project.

The project involved the creative exchange between Trentham, and Ormsby, and their interplay between the three-dimensional installation works created by American visual artist Kaersten Colvin-Woodruff, and the projected moving images of Toronto-based filmmaker Valerie Buhagiar.

Kaersten’s contribution to the project was a series of three-dimensional works constructed from a combination of organic and industrial materials. Her approach to the work was unique in that her perspective came from the mindset of a sculptor working in sync with the creative visions of the other collaborators, and not that of a costume or set technician who might approach the work like an engineer or a designer crafting props. In hindsight the project became a research lab beyond the work itself and challenged the ways in which visual, media, and performance art are presented and curated in various galleries, theaters, and alternative spaces.  

The project started its journey at Clarion University’s Little Theater in Clarion, Pennsylvania.  It then traveled to the Joanne Angie Gallery, and to Silo City’s abandoned grain elevators both in Buffalo, New York. From there it moved onto the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theater in Toronto.  It then completed its tour at the Harbourfront Center Theater in downtown Toronto in 2017.

Contextually, the project participants investigated the complexity between two seemingly conflicting yet co-conspiring phenomena, narcissism and shame.  The features of narcissism (power, arrogance, pride, and greed) are equally gripping and oppressive as those associated with shame (guilt, pity, humiliation, and fear). At the beginning of the project the collaborators were exploring the meaning of these phenomena on a global level, as they pertained to the history of nations, and on an individual level, in terms of how they function as a part of the human ego. In addition, the word ‘apology’ kept surfacing in discussions. There appeared to be a link between the negative associations of narcissism and shame, and the role which an apology plays as a way of healing these damaging states of mind.  In the end, Kaersten’s aesthetic world steeped in magical and surrealistic imagery served as a playground for these psychological phenomena to coexist in.