Potatoes is a twelve-minute, single-channel video work by Elizabeth Vander Zaag that explores language, absurdity, and phenomenology through the fragmentation of the video screen and nouns taken out-of-context. The content of the video is reduced to the video screen, the home is reduced to a set, and the meaning carried in language is reduced to a single word: potato.
Potatoes features appearances by Donna Chisholm, Stan Douglas, Terry Ewasiuk, Bruce Fraser, Walter Gulesko, Alex Kowalski, Johnny Makarov, Mark Oliver, Nina Skogster, and Chris Small.
The video features lighting and sound by Hank Bull, set design by Hugh Poole, and production assistance by Kate Craig.
Elizabeth Vander Zaag, Potatoes (1982). 12 min. 25 sec.
Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.
We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.
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