Special 8 hour screening

Saturday April 18, 2015
11:00am – 7:00pm
Gallery TPW, 170 St Helens Ave
PWYC

In March 2014 Everson and his crew spent 3 days shooting in a Mechanicsville Virginia factory that produces all the components needed to build bowling alleys. The resulting work consists of a full shift – eight hours – worth of documentation of the numerous different tasks performed by the staff of the facility. Everson initially selected 35 of the hundreds of workers to record and pared that number down to about a dozen in the final cut. The extended duration of Park Lanes allows us the time to pay close attention to each of his subjects as they work, creating extended portraits of the heterogeneous staff.

The factory assembles a wide variety of parts, from small motors and moving components to the lanes themselves. Over the course of the eight hours our attention is held by the diverse activities and the focused expertise of the workers. Framed by Everson’s signature hand held camera, the physicality of the cinematography adds another layer of labour to the piece, while the sundry components reveal their sculptural qualities in this singularly ambitious and elegant work.