Visualizing the Lost Boys by Amber Wilkinson

Kit (Landon Tunold) takes a photo of Joey (Harris Lowe). Wayne Wapeemukwa says they settled on the settled on the FGC9 gun, ‘FGC stands for Fuck Gun Control, so that gives you a sense of the kind of people involved’Photo: Courtesy of Locarno Film Festival

The story of two teenagers who plunged into a deadly crime spree across rural Canada and endured a tense two-week manhunt offers a stark, if unsettling, look at the forces that shape young lives. While the events themselves are rooted in reality, artist Wayne Wapeemukwa has used this foundation to construct a fictional narrative exploring the darker landscapes of toxic masculinity and lives spiraling out of control.

Wapeemukwa’s work delves into the internal world of the protagonists, Joey (Harris Lowe) and his friend Kit (Landon Tunold), showing how isolation and intense pressures can morph into destructive obsessions. Joey’s personal existence is characterized by deep solitude: he lives with an ailing grandfather, a mother who is an absentee alcoholic, and a father who is rarely present in his life. This grim environment sets the stage for their escapism.

In this isolated world, the pair found refuge not in reality, but in the digital realms of online survival shooter games. These virtual environments became their domain, a place where they could assert control and rule over a small segment of existence far removed from their difficult home lives.

As they navigated these shared digital spaces, Joey and Kit began constructing their own physical reality. Driven by a mix of tragedy and a fierce desire to establish dominion over their environment, they turned their attention toward the Canadian wilderness. This pursuit led them into dangerous territory, where they took the act of building something tangible—a three-dimensional gun—as part of their quest for control.

Wapeemukwa’s commentary often highlights the raw psychology behind these actions. When discussing the instruments they chose, such as a firearm, he points to the mindset that fuels such behavior, suggesting that understanding the environment and the people involved is crucial to grasping the intensity of the situation.

The resulting narrative is less about the act of crime itself and more about the psychological unraveling experienced by these young men. It explores how external pressures, coupled with internal voids, can lead individuals down paths defined by aggression and a desperate need for self-definition. Their journey into the wilderness serves as a powerful metaphor for escaping and redefining boundaries in a world that felt overwhelmingly chaotic.