The Perfect Place by William Stock
Presented by Doc Now 2023
The Perfect Place (2023) is a multimedia installation consisting of eleven still images, a Super 8 film projection, and a digital video. After participating in the events that unfolded in Minneapolis during the George Floyd uprising, artist Will Stock found himself contemplating what it truly means to be a citizen of the United States. This sentiment only grew stronger as 2020 pressed on. Growing polarization, election denialism, police violence, racism, and of course a deadly virus teamed up to bring Americans a breaking news headline every week. Will felt compelled to make an attempt to understand America at a deeper level. So he set out on an 8000-mile, two-month solo road trip that brought him to 16 different states across the vast landscapes that make up America.
The Perfect Place includes a selection of the photographs and footage he shot while on the road. His goal with this project is to discover something deeper about how this moment right now is transforming and reshaping the various colliding currents that make up America.
Artist Bio: William Stock is a Minneapolis, Minnesota native currently living in Toronto, studying to complete his M.F.A in documentary media at Toronto Metropolitan University. He holds a B.F.A from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in filmmaking. Although his institutional training is in filmmaking, his work oscillates between still and moving images, oftentimes using the differences inherent to each medium as a conceptual cue. Currently his work finds inspiration in the exploration of the collision of social and political philosophy and how such ideologies work to construct ideas of identity, subjectivity, and nationality.
