Laughing on the Inside
November 2018
Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Laughing on the Inside is a multidisciplinary installation coming from the proposition of having punchlines without jokes. Would these one liners remain funny? What stories can be conjured up from an isolated quip? This work explores different forms of comedy in relation to lineage as a way to time travel (such as stealing your grandma's joke, but confusing the details). This thinking was developed over the summer of 2018, during an experimental field school residency on the Gaspé Peninsula, which also happens to be the region the artist’s family inhabited for centuries. Going with the intention of communicating with rocks, McInnis instead turned away from the coast and towards the architecture of churches and farmhouses. This brought forth insights of deep time, genetic memory of space, and the cosmic joke. By employing the architecture of the gallery to physically create the work in this exhibition, the artist presents situational comedy.
Part of the Makeshift Textile Festival
Supported by the CRD Arts Development Service Project Grant program
