statement

The installation ‘Millennium Panic’ utilises images, objects, video and the installation's site (a former fire station) to discuss both the initial meeting of Martin MacAnally with Katy Freeway and the alleged controversy surrounding the final scene of his film ‘The Lost’. By viewing this history through the lens of contemporary events in terms of a pre and post 9/11 world, the installation aims to further the debate of the ‘airbrushing’ of historical event via the media and how truth and myth can become intertwined and co-dependent.

"On Christmas Day 2000, I visited the observation deck of the World Trade Center, where I took many pictures including the one shown in this installation. The image has haunted me ever since. This picture - just like millions of others taken by tourists like me over the years - is now part of history. It will be impossible to ever re-visit that moment or place and to see that view. I began to wonder whether peoples' forgotten vacation photos and videos (like the one shot by the man in the exhibition’s central image) are being looked at again all over the world, now seen in a much more sombre light..."


extract from catalogue interview with Chris Ballou.