Amanda Kelly

Myriam yates

Myriam Yates’ Racetrack Superstar Ghost follows on from the work she previously produced on the racetrack, the Hippodrome de Montréal. and was presented at the Foreman Gallery at Bishop’s University in Quebec, Canada.

The film offers “…a contemplative look at an event’s two parallel structures, the temporary stands set up for the U2 concert and the disused old buildings of the racetrack. This abandoned site is lit from outside by a mega event that brings it back to life. The project is taking place at a unique moment at the end of the racetrack’s life, just before it is demolished, when two opposing temporalities unfold on the same site: the racetrack’s abandoned buildings, highlighting a bygone era, and U2’s technological mega event, resolutely modern or even futuristic. The project consists in bringing out the contrast between these two structures through broad establishing shots. Sites such as the racetrack, which once attracted thousands of people, are in the process of disappearing and show us a reality on the fringes of our own. They become parallel spaces which lend themselves to projecting a kind of narrative. My work on the site is part of a heterotopic idea, that of several places and temporalities existing on the same site. In this sense the U2 concert at the racetrack is the paroxysm of this idea.”