PHANTOM LIMB
Fabric and rope, 18’ x 24’, 2011
Barrington Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Phantom Limb is a textile installation inspired by the medical phenomenon of the same name, created in response to the feverish pace of redevelopment in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In medicine, a phantom limb refers to the sensation experienced by patients who continue to feel pain or presence in a missing or amputated limb. A treatment known as the “mirror box” projects the image of the remaining limb into the space of the absent one—offering visual trickery that often brings immediate relief.

This work draws on that concept, inserting the likeness of a non-specific, vernacular building back into a city marked by architectural erasure and voids. Like the mirrored projection of a missing limb, the installation temporarily restored what was lost, offering a momentary sense of healing.

Originally installed for Nocturne: Art at Night in 2011, Phantom Limb was later included in the touring exhibition Maud Lewis and the Nova Scotia Terroir, curated by The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. In 2019, it was presented internationally at the Guangdong Museum of Art and the He Xiangning Art Museum in China.

Thanks to

Loretta Migani, for her skillful and generous assistance with the sewing and construction of Phantom Limb
Carmen Zinck of Coastal Restoration and Masonry
Chuck Young—my father—who will always climb a tree to help bring an art project to life