Mike MacDonald

Individual

Roles

Artist, Videographer

Roles at grunt

Videographer (1989 – 2001)

Biography

Born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, MacDonald is of Mi’kmaq ancestry. Mike drove across Canada every year working as a video installation artist and gardener in addition to pursuing photography and new media projects. Self-taught, he focused on the environment, incorporating plants and animals in his artworks. He found inspiration in both his aboriginal ancestry and Western sources, drawing from science as well as traditional medicine and ethnobotany. His works have been featured in exhibitions worldwide at such venues as the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, France. In 1994, he was awarded the prestigious Jack and Doris Shadbolt Prize from the Vancouver Institute for Visual Arts and in 2000, he received the first Aboriginal Achievement Award for New Media presented at the Toronto imagineNATIVE Festival.

MacDonald’s most renowned projects include the butterfly gardens he has planted across Canada since the early 1990s. They are tactile living examples of his devotion to and admiration of the environment. Inspiration to create the gardens can be seen in his video installation works, most notably in Touched by the Tears of a Butterfly (1994). This installation features silent videotape in a loop projected in front of a set of rocking chairs. The video follows the life of a butterfly, from its existence as a caterpillar until it bursts from its cocoon as a colorful winged insect. MacDonald has also been recognized for presenting some of the most touching installations on Aboriginal heritage and community. For example, Electronic Totem (1987) showcased a stack of five video monitors, one on top of the other, depicting the contemporary life of an Aboriginal community in British Columbia. Mike's careful, positive storytelling, as well as his tender regard for nature and the quiet goings-on of the butterfly, has built him a reputation as one of the more significant contemporary artists in Canada.

Vtape, 2022

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive (Artist)

Related programs

7 Photographic Works (Artist)
PLAY (Artist)
Touched by the Tears of a Butterfly (Artist)
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