Bridging the Twelve, 2016
single channel video, mono
5:13
In Bridging Twelve, aerial video footage tracks the Twelve Mile Creek in St. Catharines ON from Burgoyne Bridge to Glendale Bridge, a distance of about 2.6 km mid-way in the creek’s 20 km path. We hear the sound of electricity being generated in the oldest continually-operating hydro-electric station in Canada, Decew Generating Station 1, and excerpts from the annual reports of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario for 1942-44, when Decew 2 was built to increase electrical power generation for war industries. Decew is just upstream of Glendale Bridge and marks the point of transformation of the creek from its natural course. Burgoyne Bridge is in the area of the confluence of Twelve Mile Creek and Dick’s Creek, aka the Old Welland Canal. The creeks have been altered by industry since the mid-1800s and the volume of water in the Twelve is hugely increased by the diversion of water from the Welland Canal for power generation at Decew.
This video re-purposes media used in the installation, Streaming Twelve (2014).
Screened at Photophobia Contemporary Moving Image Festival, Hamilton Artists’ Inc., 2016
