WALDEN 69

Fastwürms, Susan Kealey and Jeanne Randolph
The exhibition runs from November 19 to December 20, 1998

A brisk and thoughtful foray in search of peace of mind, security, and a certain amount of balm for burnt-fingered moderns.†

Walden 69 is a futuristic fictional space station and technological utopia orbiting the edge of the known universe. Walden 69 owes its genesis to many previous utopias, not least the one described by B.F. Skinner in his 1948 novel Walden Two, where Skinner suggests that the key to increased human happiness is taking all surplus from scientific and technological progress and investing it into widespread artistic and cultural production.

Walden 69 emanates from the cultural commonwealth of such a utopia, featuring large colour portraits of the spaceship crew by Fastwürms (Dai Skuse and Kim Kozzi), Susan Kealey's unstable photographs of products from the home world and an inspirational text The Peaceable Kingdoms by "amenable object" guru Jeanne Randolph.

  † Comment of Charles Poore published in The New York Times about Walden Two, a novel of BF Skinner..

Kim Kozzi and Dai Skuse, two artists from Toronto, have been working together since 1979 under the name of Fastwürms. The pseudonym Fastwürms is intended to serve as a sort of metaphor for the identities of the two artists, and for their practice of recycling and transforming materials, objects and images. Their works, which range from multimedia pieces and recycled images to site-specific installations, have been shown in Canada, the United States, Holland, England, Italy, Spain and Japan, and can be found in numerous public collections.

Susan Kealey, who was born in Boston, now lives and works in Toronto. She is an artist, writer and editor. After completing studies in philosophy and translation, she obtained a diploma from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her works have been shown in Canada, Germany, Holland and Scotland. In addition to her photography and installation, Susan Kealey has worked in video Room 33: Control Data (1990); Four RS and Hairpiece (1989) and performance Redemptive (1991); A Theory of the Leisure Class (1990). In 1991 she published an artistís book titled Case Histories.

Jeanne Randolph lives and works in Toronto. She has collaborated with a number of Canadian artists on video projects, performances and works that combine photography and text. In 1991 she published Psychoanalysis, Synchronized Swimming and Other Writings on Art. This was followed, in 1997, by Symbolization and its Discontents. Because of her unique interpretation of the relationship between art and psychoanalysis, she is often invited to lecture throughout Canada. She is also a psychiatrist at the Toronto Hospital and an assistant professor in the Psychiatry Department of the University of Toronto.