When is an artist an ethnologist? When he's Cameron Jamie. Part fine artist, part filmmaker and part art event organiser, the American-born multimedia artist has spent his life travelling the globe documenting rituals both modern and primitive.
His installation film Kranky Klaus features an Austrian ritual in which Santa Claus encourages a hairy devil to beat a victim, while BB documents the rites of passage of youngsters involved in Southern California's backyard wrestling movement. Other works analyse traditions as diverse as French Bastille Day celebrations and Nathan's hot dog eating competition on Coney Island.
Jamie grew up in the suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, and the rituals of modern American suburbia - like that of decorating houses for Halloween - are often the subjects of his work. His drawings, which he describes as the 'spinal cord' of his work, are on exhibit in the Tent gallery in Rotterdam.
'My fascination with rituals started in my early childhood,' says Jamie, who looks a bit like a mid-1960s psychedelic rocker. 'I was always an observer, I was always looking at things from the outside. I saw things that were right in front of people's eyes that they hadn't noticed properly. I really wanted to analyse these things.'
It all began with an old Polaroid camera, he says.
'I got a camera when I was 10 years old - my first black and white Polaroid,' Jamie says. 'I just started from that. It was the first tool I had to document things with.
