FROM INSIDE TO OUTSIDE

Film 05:55, 2022

In June of 2022 I was given the opportunity to participate in the Arctic Circle Residency, a dedicated week living at the Eagle Plains Hotel. It was an excellent place to write: there was no internet, 24 hours of daylight, and a constant stream of tourists hoping to continue their drive north to see the Arctic Ocean in Tuktoyuktuk, NWT.

At the Eagle Plains Hotel, there is a marker overlooking the highway that describes the Arctic Circle as an imaginary line circling the globe at 66 ° 33° North, denoting the point where, on summer solstice, the sun does not set for 24 hours. There are two very distinct outhouses located at 66 ° 33° North on the Joe and Annie Henry Highway, along with the aforementioned welcome sign, that lets visitors know that in addition to being at the Arctic Circle, they are on Gwich’in Territory.

The presence of the outhouses, to me, are representative of the Arctic Circle as a repository: for an imaginary and the power it has over a territory in very real ways, and the permission given to tourists to relieve themselves on/at that site. Filmed in one of the outhouses at the Arctic Circle, FROM INSIDE TO OUTSIDE considers other the imaginary forces that govern our ideas of being inside of or outside of.