If you find yourself in Toronto on the night of October 4th, please come participate in Zombies in Condoland, a new performance in which anyone can star!

October 4th to 5th, 7pm to 7am (all night long!)
Nuit Blanche Toronto

Zombies in Condoland, a large scale performance commissioned by curator Gordon Hatt for Nuit Blanche Toronto, continues my interest in the horror film genre, grafting it onto the phenomenon of urban gentrification. Referencing Toronto’s rich history of zombie movies, the annual Toronto Zombie Walk, and the condoization of downtown artist communities, McDonald directs a legion of zombies who will perform in various late night film scenes in Toronto’s College Park. Zombies in Condoland is a series of night actions that mimic a film set for a low budget horror film such as those by director George Romero whose latest film, Diary of a Zombie, was filmed in Toronto.

Zombies achieved cult status in the past few years, with their popularity growing wildly. Enormously popular zombie walks and pub crawls occur annually in cities like Toronto, Montréal, San Francisco, Austin, Vancouver, and Liverpool. Zombies are instantly recognizable and carry a metaphoric reference to the working class. The Zombies in Condoland are responding to gentrification, moving in on an area which is rapidly changing.

The Zombies in Condoland website invites participation and provides information about the project. Zombies are encouraged to come in character - nurse zombie, business person zombie, geek zombie, sports zombie. They are encouraged also to do their makeup en route, in cafes, bars, and mass transit for more zombie fun! Zombies will also be created on site by professional makeup artists, therefore no experience is necessary. Instructional videos and a map are included on website.

Very very special thanks to Nuit Blanche, Chambre Blanche (Québec), Gordon Hatt, and Thea Munster of The Toronto Zombie Walk.

October’s issue of Bust magazine has a nice article about my zombies, by Molly Simms. Click the image below to read a larger version online. It took hours for the photographer to take the photo, which means I am extremely un-photogenic, as are lenticular images - one of which is in the background. Someone give that boy a medal.

Sarah Juliet Lauro, PhD student at The University of California Davis with whom I have been corresponding for months, dropped by The Headlands studio yesterday with this fantastic bottle of wine. We sat in the sun and discussed our zombie research.

The back label of this vintage, from Healdsburg, California reads, “2004 Zombie Zinfandel is blood-red in color, horridly rich in concentrated fruit flavors with a finish that never dies.”

Later in the evening a spasmodic zombie circa 1940 lurched across the field. I hid behind the trees.