Walker Response
Walking into one of the large rooms inside of the Weisman, I gazed to my
right to find a video projection of what I recognize as the typical Minnesota
wilderness during springtime, after a harsh and cold winter. The sight of it
brings a cold, yet warm feeling.
Seeing the picture brings back memories of
the many seasons that have come and passed living in my home town, but it
also reminds me of the frigid winter nights and the desperation to see summer
once again. The sun going down before the afternoon is over, the long
chilling nights, the cloudy days with not a drop of sun in the sky, the
winters in Minnesota can be bitter-sweet.
All of a sudden, the screen is black, bringing back the feeling of no sun in
a cold winter’s night in Minnesota. I continue to watch the screen as
gradually, that same picture of springtime in Minnesota begins to appear
again, this time with the shredding of the black overlay. After watching the
screen for a while, you begin to notice (if you know anything about hunting
or guns), that the picture of springtime in MN looked to be deer hunting
grounds. The longer I look at the shredding of the black overlay, I being to
see that it is black paper of some sort, and it looks like bullets from a
shotgun ripping at the paper as it reveals more and more of the picture with
every shot. Watching the picture develop from the blackness, I began to
realize that the diminishing black paper is kind of like winter diminishing
in a way. Winter can sometimes be a dark shroud over life, everything green
is covered in snow, all trees are as naked as can be, all animals and humans
are in hibernation, but when springtime comes along, it shows its head little
by little. The black paper to me is a representation of the shroud of
Minnesota winter, the bullets from the shotgun being fired and destroying the
black overlay—Nature allowing spring to breakthrough the ice and snow of
winter.
The fact that this project used a 12-gauge hunting rifle (firing 376 shots
total) and what looked like hunting grounds really reminds me of Minnesota,
being a child of a father who hunted. The black overlay of paper and the
project of destroying it reminds me of the feeling of when summer starts to
come around, excited and happy, as spring slowly but surely kicks the
depressing feelings and snowy days of winter out the door until the next
year. Overall, I think this project was a good representation of what
Minnesotans go through psychologically every year, going through 7-9 months
of dark and cold days, depressing and sedating, and then we slowly see the
light at the end of the tunnel, springtime poking its head through…promising
another glorious summer.