Documentum, a Buddy Bear sculpture commissioned by the German Consulate General, Toronto.
Acrylic paint, paper, pen, vinyl lettering and varnish on glass-fibre reinforced plastic, 200cm X 120cm X 80cm, 2015.
To create Documentum I collaged text and images on to the ready-made structure of the bear. My starting point was language (German and English) and the history of the German-speaking immigrants that settled in Ontario.
Another important theme in the work is the city of Berlin. The bear is the heraldic animal of Berlin, and the first Buddy Bears were designed and exhibited in that city. The city of Kitchener, Ontario was at the centre of a large settlement of German immigrants to Canada in the 19th century. From 1854 to 1916 the town was known as Berlin, before it was given the new name Kitchener. The two different cities of Berlin became a motif in the work, which I feel also relates to the possible shift of identity through immigration. Are you truly the same person when you live in a new culture or use another language?