Corbin Murdoch’s new “Denialist” video offers art as a way to overcome fears
Local costume designers Barbara Clayden and Alaia Hamer turn kids’ terror into triumph
Stills from the new “Denialist” video.
FEARS ABOUND in this pandemic age—especially for children.
That’s what makes Corbin Murdoch’s newly released music video for “Denialist” so poignant. The single has come out just days before his full record, Blind Contour, is released March 19.
For the collaboration with two well-known Vancouver costume designers, the artist asked four local kids, aged 9 to 12, to draw a picture of what they were most afraid of.
In the video, shot by local musician and songwriter Sam Tudor, we watch the children carefully illustrate their fears with markers on paper: a snake, a dragon fly, an evil clown, and a syringe. And then we join Barbara Clayden and Alaia Hamer as they whip those images up into costumes. It’s a study in the skill that goes into their craft, the artists steam-ironing gauze, painting styrofoam pieces, and dyeing fabric. (Watch it below.)
Clayden is a 30-year veteran of the theatre scene, creating wardrobes for companies from Bard on the Beach to the Electric Company and the Firehall Arts Centre. Working with her is Hamer, an emerging designer and artist from Vancouver.
Like his previous music video for “The Best Place I Ever Lived”, Murdoch’s “Denial” is proudly situated in the streets, alleyways, and parks of East Van (hello, Pizza Garden and New Brighton Park).
Corbin Murdoch. Photo by Rachel Tetrault
How does Murdoch’s mesmerizing slice of melancholy, twang-tinged indie-folk end? Well let’s just say the children get festive in their new costumes.
If the new video for “Denialist” carries one message that helps you carry on, it’s that art may be the answer to all the things that frighten us—in and outside of a pandemic.
When it comes to your fears, as Murdoch says, you can either “Bite lips/Insist they don’t exist”, or release them through art, vanquishing them with creativity.
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