the floor’s the limit is an in situ response to the Olga Korper Gallery. When I first spoke with colleagues about being represented by OKG, the response was emphatically "what was I going to do with this legendary space?". This combined with the added weight of legacy (artists who show / have shown there) led me to ask three roller-skaters to map the gallery space. 

The three-channel video installation documents the skaters’ exploration of, and interaction with, the gallery floor and walls. Each skater addressed the request to map the space differently. Kerry is animated and confident, Alyson is shy and evasive of the camera, while Caitlin is mischievous and dissects the space while “bouncing off the walls”. The paths the skaters weave parallel the artmaking process as they morph from lyrical and deliberate, to competitive, then back to contemplative.

As the skaters perform the camera tracks and negotiates their movement. Sometimes this results in a choreographed ‘catch me if you can’, play-for-play sequence, as the camera anticipates their movement and sweeps forward alongside. At other times the camera pulls back to passively observe the skater from a fixed position. While the skater may acknowledge the camera’s gaze, she skates with complete autonomy. Artmaking is both a mental and physical practice and at this point in my own career, similar to skating, it is about endurance, keeping focused, navigating the ups and downs and strategizing.