Tethered

Nadia Myre’s Tethered is a single-channel video of a Canadian flag flapping in the wind on the boat of one of her friends off the coast of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island. The frayed flag is inverted in an off-centre spatial symmetry, and in the intersection of the images, a figure appears. A dancer, perhaps, or a bird, makes its presence known and tells its own story. Tethered reflects on a Canadian symbol that here carries new meaning, half-mast, as it self-reflexively meditates on its own legacy. Of her work, Myre states, “Tethered reveals a frayed and tattered Canadian flag as a split mirrored image, each half slowly undulating in the wind. From the space where the two maple leaves overlap, the wings of a symbolic eagle emerge, spreading to take flight but never able to—its talons remaining tethered to each flag. Tethered speaks to how Aboriginal interests can never fully flourish, or even be righted, as they are bound by federal and provincial jurisdiction within the current Canadian political system.”