:{Blackhandprint}:

:{Blackhandprint}:
Neal E. Nolan –Eben Bender – Brian Kent Gotro
2009

Funded by a Canada Tourism grant artists Nolan, Bender and Gotro rode freight (Intermodal Container) into BC's interior collecting the stories, imagery and inspiration for the installation.
48 x 8' ft and seven days later the 12 panels and 13 min' video was completed, installed and opened to the public as part of the Container Art installation project at Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition.

Curator Peter Male and project consultant Ronald Lewis Facchinetti (containerart.org) worked with eight local Vancouver artists in the opened themed installation of eight Intermodal Container units which displayed from Aug 24th - Sept 7th at the Vancouver PNE festival.

Beauty can transmit more then mere information regarding the spirit of a nation, and the 8 works selected by Peter Male for the Vancouver edition of Container Art have made me sense what a wonderful and complex country Canada is. Neal Nolan's train hopping story through the enormity of Canadian nature is an experience entirely alien to us Europeans.
-Ronald Lewis Facchinetti



Left and right landscape photos of container installation


::CLICK ON PHOTOS TO EXPAND::




Flattened 360 degree layout of container

-Detail photos of installation:






:{Blackhandprint}:
2009
Chronicle - Automatic writing.

We left on the eve in the foot print of recognition, the notion of our undertaking the hallmark of heritage- a three mile hike through hostile native territory to three hours under cover of dusk abrasively lit by yard lights - softly back dropped by the moon over the ocean, the glow of the ferries carrying to destination a more average citizen along a more definitive rout.

Three hours undercover amongst the thousands of tons that make up the port of our departure, even this early into our embarkment a dermal film collects, compounded, the various types of sweaty grime only a tramp can claim contemporary to: three days in the making, exposed skin a faux finished canvas of grit and grime, finger nails raised from their beds an embankment of dinge.

Hopping lines from bottomless to manure to dish- our line finally pulls out, the staining yellow of the yard lights hissing in the distance, the night began in the wee hours of the morning giving way to misty rain forest clearings, endless interurban factories and the howling canyons of the Fraser to a desert dawn silhouetted in velvet painted memoirs; the wind in our faces whispering the ghostly legacy of a dying culture.

Over shooting our journey’s end, the billowing stacks of the mill heralding our destination as if it wasn’t immediately apparent that our line had turned out to be a hot shot passing straight through Boston Bar wile we slept..

Greeted by ‘Car Guy’ on the northern shores we ate all day breakfasts and slept in parks.

With regard to the impetuous nature of things as they be, we made our groggy way back to the yard in time to adopt the cab of a Western Black Snake- the air buzzing w/ humidity against the pale dry arid dessert, the evaporation of our own sweat hanging heavy in the air of the cab like trying to breathe in an oven- we held out as long as we could finally retreating to the track side jungle- catching out on a string of empty IM cars late afternoon, once again off into the desert sky we rode a twilight array of constellations, factories, town road crossings and shooting stars

Boston Bar as welcoming as always, one of us stayed on the line wile the two of us led into town and laid out under the stars in the confidence of the school yard.

Morning came with the rigor mortis of old train injuries to years of badly executed dismounts and nights slept on the most unforgiving of steels.

Once packed up we made our way to visit Bill at his compound down by the yard- happy to see us as it had been a year since our last visit, we sat around in the heat of the canyon, talked of the road, ethics, hunting, fishing, bush craft and women.

We bid farewell and made our way to a couple beers and burgers- loaded our 4Ltrs. of water with a handful of oatmeal and lurked a dusty saunter to track side.

We departed from the yard waving good bye to Bill at his shack as we passed- creaking, screaming, bumping and banging our way homeward bound.