REMnants of the Rave
Chelsea MacKay'S MFA Defence
Friday, November 28, 2025 | 10:00 AM
Room 4955 鈥� SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts
149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
REMnants of the Rave examines the affective, material, and spectral traces of rave culture through sculptural installation and video. The exhibition comprises six works that reimagine the dance floor and its peripheral spaces as sites of memory, ritual, and transformation. Found footage, mirror etching, and recontextualized decorative objects are employed to consider how subcultural artifacts persist as both personal and collective hauntings. Through the integration of digital manipulation, historical symbolism, and sensory installation, the works explore nostalgia, altered perception, and the politics of remembrance within the postmodern condition of rave culture. Across the exhibition, gestures of devotion, collapse, and reflection intertwine to evoke a tension between past euphoria and present distance. The title alludes to both the dreamlike and residual nature of these experiences, what remains after the collective experience of the event has faded. REMnants of the Rave thus situates rave culture as an enduring, if fragmented, site of longing and reanimation.
Keywords: nostalgia, 90s rave culture, collectivity, residue, pastiche