Connie Chappel

Masks developed from photographs are used to venture into human reinvention and life cycles. The character of the mask expresses pop culture as it relates to myth, beauty, religion and death.

La Mordida (The Bite) is a performance inspired by shop mannequins and Mexican culture. In Mexico, mordida – the bite – is a term for a bribe, a payoff, a business deal. The mannequin is representative of eternal youth and the smooth, mask-like faces created by the multimillion dollar industry of anti-aging procedures. The mannequin transforms into characters expressing the bite of pop culture as it relates to beauty, fashion, desire, religion, crime and death.

Before the performance viewers dress the mannequin in an outfit for the performer to remove and model. During the final minutes of the performance viewers follow in procession to envelop the performer for the closing scene.

This video is condensed from the 16 minute complete performance.

La Mordida (The Bite): Connie Chappel
Choreography: Connie Chappel / Sarah McQueston
Performer: Sarah McQueston
Costumes: Connie Chappel
Soundtrack: C









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The fashion industry invention of beauty as thin (alarmingly thin) is sustaining an ideal image, launched in the 1960s with Twiggy, of the desirable female body as streamlined and stick thin that is detrimental to health and potentially life-threatening. Critics of extreme thinness are advocating for rules and regulations within the modeling industry. The shunning of bulk has created a desire for thinness so prevalent that it has morphed from the fashion scene into a world of marketing ploys ranging from beverage containers to electronic devices.

Mannequin images mounted like unclipped photobooth strips to suggest a shift in personality of the subjects so that the viewer feels a mild sensation for the mannequins.

55 mannequin images are displayed in a collage like cyber friends in a View All format. They 'communicate' through expression, costume and pose; and, obviously without feelings for the viewer yet the viewer feels a mild sensation for the mannequins. Some 'friends' on web-based cyber sites are "Anons" - disguised to preserve anonymity. If you would like a mannequin image from View All as your Anon, please visit my website...I will meet you 'out there' my friend!

In ancient times, people believed certain earthly rocks and boulders to be possessed with magical qualities, spirits or energies. In fact, rocks naturally emit a type of energy called background radiation. As a method for channelling, rocks were piled, carved, painted or patterned on the open ground for ceremonial, healing and teaching purposes. Today many ancient rock sites are still regarded as sacred and are still being used. And today many modern landscape designs incorporate rock gardens and boulders for both aesthetics and esoteric qualities.
“Moon” metaphorically reminds the viewer of the fragile state of the environment and of the interminable time it will take for the earth to transform and regenerate life if we don’t respect it. So, will viewers of Moon hesitate when they are invited to remove a smooth stone from the cup-shaped crater? Or, will viewers gladly hold and rub a stone and meditate on the future of our environment.

This series of photographs taken between January 2009 and March 2010, features the mannequin I call Molino. Molino is named after a small hotel in Mexico that had jungle-like grounds with quaint little cabins, lazy iguanas, screeching parrots, and meandering walkways which lead to the sea. A few years ago the hotel was bulldozed to make way for an imposing high-rise condo complex. During construction, foot traffic was diverted past a small dress shop where I discovered the mannequin I named Molino. Here I would pause at the window and study the downcast face of the mannequin and her latest outfit. In the photograph of Molino wearing a black and white turban-style head covering, black dress and white shawl, the new high-rise complex is reflected in the window.

This image is from a series: "Once They Are Hanging". The title is a word play on gallery hanging and worm hanging. Opposing the tradition of gallery images being picture perfect, this image is rendered using mass-market one hour drugstore processing without enhancements from image editing software and fine art specialty printing. The image is manipulated manually incorporating paint and collage.

The tree is antropomorphic with trunk and bark reminiscent of legs and skin folds. Opposing the pleasantries of traditional scenes of nature, on the tree, worms gather in cancerous-like clumps or spin down on silken webs like free falling viruses waiting to attack its host - a tree leaf or an unsuspecting passer-by. The worms on the image are plentiful like the worms found hanging in Winnipeg's trees that they inhabit every spring and summer.

To many, viewing this image is as creepy and unsightly as inadvertently discovering them in mass, alive in nature. To



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Environmentally acceptable trunk bands are intact to no avail. Without a coordinated community banding program individual trunk bands are useless.