James Partaik’s truly hybrid creative practice embraces a range of non-mainstream contemporary art forms and media – audio, video, electronic site specific installations, performance art and installActions – in pursuit of a project that he himself characterizes as a ‘renewal of the language of art’. This highly prolific artist has created numerous installations, interventions, performances and audio works, which have been presented extensively across Canada, Asia, Europe and South America. Partaik also has a longstanding commitment to initiating and facilitating artist-led projects, including multimedia exhibitions in Québec and Japan. He is a founding member of ARQHÉ, a multidisciplinary collective which examines the relationship between art, architecture, landscape and multimedia, and AVATAR, widely regarded in Canada as pioneers for their creation and dissemination of audio and electronic art in the context of media arts, notably through their innovative use of the internet. (www.meduse.org/avatar) Partaik lectures at Laval University in Québec City, where he teaches video and new media art.

For RHWNT, Partaik will develop an audiovisual, object-based and interactive ‘InstallAction’, entitled ‘America’s Most Wanted’, a title that hints at the wider political implications of the work. The piece will be specifically ‘grafted’ to the space of trace gallery, using preconceived components complemented with materials found in Cardiff. It is through this kind of site-related practice that Partaik explores the stakes implicit in creative acts, acts that open themselves up to what is invisible or potential in every situation and thereby tangibly transforming reality.
“Everything is possible. That's the problem. From what do we construct reality? This piece explores the nature of the ambient paranoia which presently dominates North America. In a delirium of interpretation, things possess potential links. Insofar as they can be perceived, objects appear or disappear, establishing identity. At the time when the object is able to appear clearly, there is a moment of recognition and the object holds meaning for us.”