Fools Gold 
​• Hermit International Art Festival, Plasy, Czech Republic, 1995
• Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts, as part of the group exhibition Altered States, curated by Catherine Crowston, 1997
​• Artspace, Peterborough, 1997
• OBORO, Montreal, as part of the group exhibition Counterposes, curated by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher, 1998
​• University of Scarborough Gallery, 1998

This performance/installation was first created as part of an international art festival in the Czech Republic. The artist transformed a room in the Monastery in the town of Plasy where artists were invited to create site-specific installations. Fool's Gold reflected on both the medieval tradition of alchemy from this historic site and the changing economy in Eastern Europe at the time. The artist painted stones collected from the surrounding landscape and gave them away to viewers. Two 16mm film loops represent the elements of fire and water on either side of her work station, setting the stage where the artist as alchemist stocked a “pile of gold."

Fool's Gold was adapted to the Canadian landscape where painting stones gold was a metaphor for an economy based on resource extraction. The 16mm film loop here projects the wilderness shot from a moving train. With assistance from gallery attendants, stones collected from around the railway tracks were painted through the course of the exhibition, ensuring that supply met demand, as viewers were invited to take a "piece of gold."

Walter makes reference to the gold rush and the exploration and settling of Canada. Her presence as artist-alchemist addresses the means by which value is conferred upon the landscape and how it is literally transformed by political and economic interests.
excerpt from exhibition brochure by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher.

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