Video
19:45 mins.
2002
Harry & Janet is a portrait of two elderly individuals living within an area undergoing regeneration in Glasgow’s Gorbals district in Scotland. The two live in the Cumberland St. tower blocks, built during the failed regeneration in the 1960’s and the onslaught of modernism’s attempt to reconstruct “the community.” With the demolition of the city’s first suburb, Harry & Janet can only wait and hope for a new home in their neighborhood of 65 years. While in search for the heart of the Gorbals, and to deconstruct this legendary district due to its history of violence and substance abuse, Vincent Goudreau and Kai Hilton (two American artists) found Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Crazy Horse. The couple’s love for country music and knowledge of Native American culture then brought Vincent Goudreau back to Arizona to explore a different history than his own.
The idea of the hero, the exotic and the myth is confronted with the universal theme, that of the movement of people or their systematic removal. The attention then shifts to Hopi land and reveals a unique comparison between two different cultures of the world. With Western Peabody Coal Company’s continuing to pump Hopi and Navajo water for the sole purpose of their slurry line, the survival of a people in their home land is then again questionable. This Ice Age water mixed with coal is then pipelined to Mojave Generating Station near Laughlin, Nevada, and produces electricity for Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
On location in Glasgow, Scotland. Video by Goudreau and Kai Hilton in association with Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Media Access Centre, Gorbals Artworks Programme. Special thanks to Harry McPhilemy and Janet Moore. With kind support by Dav Bernard, Jimmy Clancy, Skylar Haskard and Ian Reid.
On location in Hopi land.
Video by Vincent Goudreau in association with Cathy Silverman of the Nada Brahma Foundation. Special thanks to Robbie, Cody, Willy and the Honani family, Gwen and Jackie Dyer.