[LESS]Selectors' Comments:
On a post-jury studio visit one evening in May, I spotted one of the very swans doing maternal duty on a nest of trash in Alexander Heim's Grand Walk. Heim's video steers just short of predictable [the visual equivalent of long and loose] to offer up an uncannily convincing record of the mix of pastoral and putrid that passes for nature in the daily routine of us urbanites. Reminds of just how much we're willing to blank for the love of a bird or a boat or a dog, meandering at the pace of running water. You could smell it.
The log rolls over, and over, in the flow. The swan is desultory as well as forceful in her role as default character. The fixed camera, fixed place, observation in real time allows a tangle of plastic bag, twigs, cans and leaves, to make a place and moment worth attention and intention. All is stuck, impacted, but the parallel water and tow path carry a natural logic that also give from left to right.
