KEVIN SCHMIDT Back to Magazine

A river at dusk, lights twinkling on the horizon. A boat floats lazily, slowly downstream, carrying a large, seemingly precariously mounted projection screen. In the boat, a lone figure is seated, his back to the viewer. Mournful orchestral strings fade in, signaling the beginning of Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptation of Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Throughout the next 11 hours and 30 minutes of his single-channel video Epic Journey, Kevin Schmidt journeys the length of the Fraser River from Fort Langley, nearly reaching the mouth of the Pacific Ocean while projecting the trilogy in its entirety.