The Deep Dark

The Deep Dark is a spatial installation intended to illuminate the interspace between our sacred (and natural) environments and cultural constructs of darkness.

Why do we fear the dark? Is darkness a presence or an absence? What separates real fears of nighttime from imaginary fears of things we cannot see? Using domestic doorways as an entry point, the installation invites you to move through ghostly architecture. As you pass through each illuminated frame, you are blinded by intense white light that overexposes your eyes. The darkness beyond is magnified, much darker than before (Nyctalopia). As your eyes adjust, the next illuminated door frame becomes visible in the distance, beckoning you onward. From an outward perspective, as viewers step through the gates, they can disappear completely.

Drawing from commonalities in the human experience of darkness as a physical and metaphysical entity, The Deep Dark offers light by which the darkness grows darker and disillusions the night.

Caitlind r.c. Brown (︎BFA '10, Drawing) & Wayne Garrett are artists, collaborators, and cultural organizers based in Calgary/Mohkinstsis, Canada. Since 2010, they have cultivated a practice that is site-responsive, participatory, and poetic, inviting sensory engagement on a human-scale through novel experiences and collective effervescence. Many of their sculptures, installations, interventions, and curatorial projects transpire in non-traditional spaces, ranging from ancient forests to derelict buildings, suburban parking lots to municipal libraries, public parks to their own backyard. Caitlind & Wayne believe in art’s potential to shift our perspective of the everyday, building public intimacy, environmental connections, and radical empathy in a complex world.