As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2017 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s an assortment of treats to surprise you with every day – to enjoy and contemplate as we all reflect on the year that has passed and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2018. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to each of you for inspiring us throughout the year.
*******
Founding member of the East German Ma’Claim Crew in the late 90s, Street Artist Case Maclaim is now subtly shimmering and rotating and blinking through your photorealistic memory, catching the sunlight and reflecting back patterns and surfaces and volume as he moves. His abstracted human gestures on walls internationally capture the attention of passersby who wonder if they are seeing something static or moving, painted or photographed. Here Case tells about a figurative tightrope he found people walking upon in Manitoba this year.
CASE MACLAIM
The Rope |
In June 2017 I was invited by the PangeaSeed Foundation to go to Churchill, Manitoba in Canada. Churchill is well known for being the capital of polar bears.
In fact the population of this species is alarmingly shrinking.
There is also archeological evidence of human presence dating back 4000 years, yet I have never seen a community suffering more from the man-made global warming than here. The melting permafrost is unsuitable for building infrastructure on, such as the railways they depend upon. In addition to this, massive storms and flooding are washing away the railroads making them unable to use for transportation of goods and people.
While taking the pictures of the railroad workers and chatting with them I realized how deeply these people are embedded with their homes. My hope for these hard working women and men is that their voices will be heard and that their government and the railroad company will finally support them and their future generations.
In fact the population of this species is alarmingly shrinking.
There is also archeological evidence of human presence dating back 4000 years, yet I have never seen a community suffering more from the man-made global warming than here. The melting permafrost is unsuitable for building infrastructure on, such as the railways they depend upon. In addition to this, massive storms and flooding are washing away the railroads making them unable to use for transportation of goods and people.
While taking the pictures of the railroad workers and chatting with them I realized how deeply these people are embedded with their homes. My hope for these hard working women and men is that their voices will be heard and that their government and the railroad company will finally support them and their future generations.
While taking the pictures of the railroad workers and chatting with them I realized how deeply these people are embedded with their homes. My hope for these hard working women and men is that their voices will be heard and that their government and the railroad company will finally support them and their future generations.
Case Maclaim. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. 2017 (photo © Case Maclaim)
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
For those of you north of the Equator who have been announcing that Summer is over, may we remind you that we still have till Saturday the 21st so keep playing in the sun together with short sleeves o...
A lot of action in Brooklyn these last few weeks thanks to a number of artists swinging through town for the Moniker Art Fair in Greenpoint, as well as the annual peregrination of artists who are ...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. The (mostly) True Story of Hobo Graffiti 2. Bathroom Run at Urban Spree in Berlin 3. 1UP Cre...
When we were in Rochester for Wall\Therapy in July we also caught a new mural going up by local artists Sarah Rutherford and Mr. Prvrt, who have witnessed the fall of some of the city’s titans falter ...
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. The first day of February brought New York a blizzard - a foot and a half of snow, complete with winds and drifts and buried cars. It drives everyone outside to...