Fran Stafford

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Tactile Observance: A Not So Comfy Quilt

The Barriers of Culture

In this series of works, Frances explores the barriers of culture and how this can affect ones identity and sense of belonging. This sentiment prompted her to consider her own identity by examining elements of memory, family history and her relationship to the society in which she currently lives.

 The Island, the IS-land

The open and vast landscape of the Canadian Prairies always allowed Frances an easy escape from the pressures of her world. Since moving to Bahrain however, the language barriers she is faced with have revived her sense of confinement, yet the lack of open space does not permit her release.

Here she attempts to present her feelings about her presence on this tiny island whereby she carefully cuts the map of Bahrain into an English Dictionary.

Frances poses the question: How can you feel liberated when you are confined by the barriers of language and culture?

Tactile Observance: A Not So Comfy Quilt

Canada is often referred to socially as a ‘Multicultural Quilt’ (as opposed to the ‘Melting Pot’ of the U.S). Here, Fran has stitched together her own quilt- representative of her identity as expressed through memory and ephemera of her daily life. This has in essence resulted in a quilt of her thoughts in the present and an existential understanding of herself since she moved to Bahrain.

The combination of images from memory- traces of photographs and elements that refer to her presence in Bahrain, are in a sense a personal exploration of her identity. The process of creation was therapeutic, raising memories and recollections that floated back into her consciousness.

As she attempts to make sense of her own identity, Frances urges the viewer to discover her narrative; to touch the sterile plastic sheeting that covers the layers of her memory tracings and to contemplate the transparency of her thoughts.

Traces

By carefully tracing familiar images and old photos, Frances explores her nostalgia for ‘home’ juxtaposed by her present situation and comes to the realization that her nostalgia is not for a physical space, but rather for people and memories connected to a specific place. Furthermore, the opaqueness of the paper forced her to focus on certain details in the imagery as she traced, causing a litany of memories related to certain subjects to surface. She encourages viewers to trace their own map of Bahrain as a means to contemplate their own familiarity with the island.

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Frances Stafford is interested in social landscapes and the investigation of binaries. She likes to study divergent schools of thought. She is not interested in answers, but more so in questions. In trying to pinpoint contemporary reality, Frances examines how material culture and its relation to the fleeting present/very recent past can provide us with insight into the manner in which economics elicits evolution.

Frances was born in 1984 in Edmonton, Canada where she was raised in a Ukrainian cultural community. She completed a B.A. Honors degree in Art History with a focus on Canadian Contemporary Aboriginal Art at Carleton University, Ottawa in 2008. After graduation she moved to Toronto where she collaborated with various art collectives before moving to Maastricht, Netherlands in 2009. There and in Amsterdam, Italy, and Vancouver she wrote a total of 5 screenplays (translated to Dutch) for Director/Producer, Elbe Stevens. She moved to Bahrain in 2010 and was resident curator of Al Riwaq Art Space. She now works for the Ministry of Culture as an Exhibition Specialist.

fstafford77@gmail.com