Cat Rabbit, Do Not Tape Over
"For most of my teenage years, my dad would give me a blank video tape for my birthday. The possibility of this object was staggering - what would I be able to capture? Could I time it right to get a whole season of Daria on the one tape? Will I get home from school in time to record both I Dream of Jeannie AND Bewitched? Whatever I ended up documenting, I invariably labeled the tape with ‘Do Not Tape Over’ - these recordings being too calculated and precious a video patchwork to risk being accidentally replaced with a dry documentary or a casual night of Rage.
I watched those tapes over and over again, so much so that their contents are now firmly recorded in my brain; a mental scrapbook of inspiration that shaped my little teenage mind. Do Not Tape Over features certain characters and scenes that became as familiar as childhood friends, laboriously recreated through hours of hand sewing and felting, as a means to honour their influence on my work, preserve them from being lost to the fuzziness of memory and outdated technology, and - perhaps most importantly - offer a line of connection to others with similar formative memories."