To produce his video piece Epic Journey, 2009, Kevin Schmidt organized a highly unusual projection of the Lord of the Ringstrilogy on a motorboat drifting down the Fraser River at night.
The title Epic Journey refers to both the adventure of Frodo and his companions in the Fellowship of the Ring and Schmidt’s epic undertaking in creating this work. Using two boats —one for the screen and film projector, the other for the camera and technical crew— Schmidt filmed the projection and the movement of the screen as it floated through the nocturnal Fraser landscape in one long, take lasting 11 hours, the total running time of the Lord of the Rings film adaptation made by New Zealand director Peter Jackson.
Like many of Schmidt’s works, Epic Journey conveys the narrative of its production. Device, staging and duration all are an integral part of this work revolving around the figures of landscape, music and pop culture. In his practice, Schmidt draws unexpected parallels, he brings together different “realities” and rekindles the relationship between subject and landscape by revealing the production process.
Born in 1972 in Ottawa, Kevin Schmidt lives in Vancouver. Epic Journey is his first presentation at the Musée.