Ally McKay

McKay’s ‘Failure is not an option’, made in collaboration with Thomas Oliver, inhabits the space between documentation and performance. A cinematic articulation of perseverance and frustration, in ‘Failure is not an option’, McKay's process becomes the central focus, as we observe the artist repeatedly create short-lived peaks by leaning two sheets of paper against one another. Oliver’s sweeping lens captures McKay’s focus and persistence as her tenuous structures inevitably collapse, their mutual support unable to withstand the slightest disruption. Through the painstaking process of persisting despite inevitable failure, McKay uses material poetics to speak to the lived experience of balancing competing responsibilities in a fast paced capitalist culture.