On the surface Wild Suburb explores human/animal relationships—but it’s also meant to represent something larger—human/human relationships. It’s set in Western Canada—but also in a larger world where identity politics are at play.
The deer/man (my alter ego) wants acceptance and love, despite sometimes feeling judged or rejected, like any one of us. So he balances his time in the suburbs with his time in the wild, where his otherness dissolve into natural beauty and grace.
I use the mask as an act of deception, but my intentions are noble— to feel a sense of belonging in society, but also make a meaningful contribution. The mask helps me do just this.
Hi, I'm Mitch Kern, a full-time associate professor, administrator, and academic advisor at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and an artist who engages in open-ended visual research—to which this site is dedicated.
Wild Suburb plays with power relationships in society. It explores trust—working for it, earning it, and not betraying it. It investigates belonging—in my community and in nature. And it's a metaphor for my own assimilation and acculturation into Western Canada.
I identify as a bi-coastal, Judeo-Christian, dual citizen. I was born in New York City—but moved to Los Angeles when I was eleven. I was raised in a Jewish family—but married a Protestant. And I spent the first half of my life living in the US—but now I'm living the second half in Canada (as a dual citizen).
As an immigrant, artist, husband, and father, I'm grateful to live and work here. I'm thankful to Canada, Alberta, and the traditional people of this Blackfoot territory for accepting me and my family.
The use of masks in ritual performance is nearly as old as culture itself, and can be traced to every civilization. Early masks have been found in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
The most common theory for an ancient masking ritual is that by masking, one channeled an ancestral spirit—and become possessed by it. Covering the face allowed the spirit to enter the body, transforming the masked individual with ancestral power. Belief in the power made the transformation complete (1).
In Mask and Masking: A Survey of their Universal Application to Theatre Practice, 1984, Inih Ebong writes, “Masks are profound universal statements on the metaphysical paradox of being and existence.” Quoting the anthropologist Elizabeth Tonkin he states, “…at its most fundamental, the act of masking is an embodied paradox: the wearer has a face and a not-face (2).”
The influential Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman blurred the line between performance and reality by suggesting that everyday social interactions are akin to theatrical performances occurring on a main stage and a back stage. On the main stage, individuals reveal what they want others to see about them, while on the back stage, they keep other parts of themselves hidden. Goffman essentially proposed a theory of self where individuals, motivated primarily by the desire to avoid embarrassment, strive to control impressions others form about them (3).
From contemporary art, to pop culture to ancient history, society is replete with hybrid creatures known as chimera. The original chimera from Greek mythology and had a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. Today the word commonly refers to any hybrid creature made up of different animal parts—a horse with wings, cats with eagle heads, or fish with fur (4).
References
1. Dr. Gwilym Morus-Baird, Celtic Source: Exploring the Myths of the Celtic Nation, Celtic Source Online, 2024
2. Inih A. Ebong, Mask and Masking: A Survey of their Universal Application to Theatre Practice, Nomos, 1984
3. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Doubleday, 1956
4. Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings, Penguin Press, 2006