Halifax secret keeper

HBeaumont — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:55:03 +0000

Local artist makes movie and sound sculpture from secrets

The Confidante traces heavy black circles around her eyes with Halloween makeup, using the camcorder screen as a mirror. In six minutes the 22-year-old NSCAD student transitions from secret collector to secret keeper. When the transformation is complete, two thick, black lines obscure her eyes and mouth.

Annik Gaudet’s first film called Confidante, a feminine word that means protector, played at an art show in a Creighton Street basement last week. It’s one of Gaudet’s two multimedia responses to her collection, now 60 secrets strong. She will display her second response, an interactive sound sculpture, at the Eyelevel Gallery on May 19 as part of the 35 Days of Un-Organized Art.

“When given the chance I think people want to confide,” the art student from New Brunswick said during an interview on her sunny backyard stoop. “There is a risk they take that is involved in sending their personal information to an anonymous figure, but I think it’s the anonymity that makes them feel comfortable.”

Gaudet began collecting in January for her Ideas and Process class. As an experiment, she posted an online classified ad that read: “Contribute to art and get something off your chest. Send your anonymous secrets to sendmeyoursecret@hotmail.com.” She also placed a small black box, blank pieces of paper and a pen beside the toilet in the Upstairs Apartment Gallery to tempt art lovers in the middle of their private business.

It worked. Gaudet garnered a variety of handwritten and emailed responses.

“You get your regular kind of secrets about doing things behind your roommate’s back or a lot of sexual things. I find that 75 per cent is sexually related, which kind of makes sense. I got one in particular that was pretty like, whoa, maybe I didn’t need to know that.”

local art

Halifax secret keeper