Meneath: The Mirrors of Ethics uses the Pepper's Ghost Technique from theme parks and theatre to represent hidden indigenous ancestors within her animation film. This technique uses two perpendicular monitors with a piece of glass at a 45-degree angle between them that reflects the image from the monitor facing up, giving it a ghostly apparition appearance.



Terril Calder is an Métis from Fort Frances, Ontario, and she said that her piece is "presented as a political puppet theater experience that uses this old school technology to expose hidden truths." She is using the Pepper's ghost technique to represent her indigenous grandmother, and she says, "there's a hidden character when you're an outsider to the prominent culture, which is Christianity and colonialism. You always have another person whispering in your ear, so it was a way to show or to expose that other character."



Calder wanted to ground this clash of cultures by looking at different ethical systems. She uses her stop-motion animation to compare and contrast the Seven Deadly Sins with the Seven Sacred Teachings from Indigenous culture. In her piece, the deadly sin of Wrath is paired with the sacred teaching of Courage, Envy is paired with Wisdom, Pride is paired with Humility, Greed is paired with Honesty, Gluttony is paired with Respect, Sloth is paired with Truth, and Lust is paired with Love. She's presented with the mainstream culture's ethics, and then you hear her indigenous grandmother whispering the countervailing sacred teachings while there is some ghostly visual representation that uses the Pepper's ghost technique.



Calder's piece won the Tribeca New Voices Award, and the jury statement reads: “Both a dream and a nightmare, the work incites a necessary conversation with exceptional use of craft, storytelling and unexpected use of technology with the potential to iterate in a way that undoubtedly will empower future work.”



I had a chance to catch up with Calder at Tribeca to talk about her process of creating this piece, the inspiration behind using the Pepper's ghost, the clash of cultures, ethics, and how art can be used to reflect upon and heal from trauma.











This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.



Music: Fatality