Vancouver performance artist honoured
Margaret Dragu plans to use the $ 25,000 prize to create a video about the idea of alter egos
Vancouver performance artist and self- described rule- breaker Margaret Dragu is one of the recipients of this year’s Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Dragu, whose work includes performance art, videos and installations, said, in a telephone interview from Toronto, that she is “beyond thrilled” to have won the $ 25,000 prize.
“My hair’s standing straight up on end and I’m not even using gel.”
Dragu said she will use the money to create a new video work called The Multi- Persona Disorder of Madame Dragu, which will explore the idea of alter egos.
People used to consider it normal for children to have imaginary friends until they were about five years old, but after that it was considered dangerous or unhealthy, Dragu explained.
“Psychologists now don’t believe that as much,” she said, explaining that imaginary friends can be a safe way for children to express feelings they’d rather not attribute to themselves — that Captain Sparky doesn’t want a certain relative to babysit him, for example.
In the movie, Dragu said she will use three personas to explore this issue.
“I’m always hiding behind my personas to discuss things that are actually very serious but that also allow me to be humorous,” she said, explaining that the use of humour makes it easier for audiences to relate to her work.
Dragu, 58, began her career as a dancer and choreographer in Calgary. She moved to New York in the 1970s, a time when artists of all stripes were doing a lot of conceptual work. She worked in dance and then in theatre and film, but found all of those mediums too confining.
“I seem to have been just driven to just break all those rules and so it becomes exhausting to be fighting something,” she explained. “I just found much more artistic freedom within visual arts and ... multidisciplinary arts.”
Dragu’s “day job” is as a fitness trainer in Richmond who specializes in working with people with injuries.
Photographer Geoffrey James, goldsmith Charles LewtonBrain, art gallery curator Diana Nemiroff, sculptor Royden Rabinowitch and visual artists Ron Martin, Jan Peacock and Jana Sterbak are the other award recipients.