Attempts at Preservation exhibition statement and list of works
Attempts at Preservation utilizes multimedia performance to critically consider the instinctual response of preservation. Using gendered, funerary, archival, and art-historical labours as frameworks, the exhibition’s suite explores personal experiences of isolation and fragility. It also interrogates my familial relationships with land. Through the last year, I came to recognize my apartment building—a former mortuary—as an integral contextual component for my thesis, the research for which first centred on domestic stillness. I then came to reflect on how histories of illness (colonially-wielded and otherwise) have shaped and continue to shape the land on which my apartment building stands.
Prior to this exhibition, the bulk of my recent artistic production has focused on two seemingly distinct themes. First, the labour histories of the femme-presenting figure model: a form of gendered freelance work that became standardized in the 19th century, which I argue is a precursor for durational performance art and as a study of the activist potential found in stillness. Second, the unique psychic qualities of housing precarity: an anxious state that encourages a strange form of intimacy to develop between the self and the hobbled home. The final seminar of my MFA was concerned with archival practices and how to address difficult histories (prof. Deanna Bowen); in that class, I began to unravel family histories as a way to address my settler subjectivity. For Attempts at Preservation, I create a constellation of these and adjacent themes, all of which feel suddenly interrelated within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
works (in order of appearance)
Zoe and Juliet, winnowing (after Courbet), 2020-ongoing
embroidery on digitally manipulated reproduction of Gustav Courbet’s The Wheat Sifters (1854-1855), 9.7oz chenille
dimensions: 57 x 66 inches overall, folded
Leonard's livelihood (a partial archive), 2021-ongoing
a partial collection of unedited but resized photographs of gravestones and gravecovers made by the artist's great grandfather, located in Shellbrook, Snowden, Spalding, and Star City (SK), sourced from findagrave.com and courtesy of website vollunteers (Hollaw, Larry McKay, srleitch, Ruth McIvor, vintage vixen, DL, Diane A, Sigrid Olsen, trolles, pensh), 100lb cardstock, masking tape
dimensions: variable
back to position, 2021-ongoing
performance with beaded pillowcase from the artist’s childhood, knitted and crocheted blankets by Susan Bischoff and Ana Maria Marcu, additional blankets of sentimental origins, video projection on loop, various found yellow wallpapers and accompanying papers and foam, a photograph of the back steps in the artist's childhood home, gold and white nails, various masking tapes, homemade ice cream shaped as fruit (silicone molds made by Nina Lutgen), crystal bowl, glass bucket (made by Jean-Simon Trottier) for detritus and three glass jars for daily keeping, standing freezer, performance attendants (Aja Palmer, Ana Maria Marcu, Elliot Elliot), custom print pandemic masks, a depiction of the artist by Caitlin McGuire, metronome, used furniture, a small library, and a number of ornaments produced and arranged by the artist (a stained glass replica of the artist's bedroom window made by the artist, bad cell phone photos printed on photo paper, yellow and white flowers hung by a gold chain, bronze casts of the artist's left breast)
performance duration: 6 hours total daily, in 36 minute intervals, 10 times per day
video duration: 36 minutes, looped
Attempts at Preservation (artist book), 2021
spineless accordion fold artist book, printed (Japanese Kitakata and Kozuke paper), cut and bound by the artist, paperboard
dimensions: 6 x 5.5 inches
How to take care of an Aging Home (excerpts), 2021-ongoing
artist book, xeroxed and stapled
dimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches
sweet cracking pane, 2021
stained glass replica of the artist’s bedroom window, designed by the artist and produced by Clément Vieira
dimensions: 36 x 18 inches
Prior to this exhibition, the bulk of my recent artistic production has focused on two seemingly distinct themes. First, the labour histories of the femme-presenting figure model: a form of gendered freelance work that became standardized in the 19th century, which I argue is a precursor for durational performance art and as a study of the activist potential found in stillness. Second, the unique psychic qualities of housing precarity: an anxious state that encourages a strange form of intimacy to develop between the self and the hobbled home. The final seminar of my MFA was concerned with archival practices and how to address difficult histories (prof. Deanna Bowen); in that class, I began to unravel family histories as a way to address my settler subjectivity. For Attempts at Preservation, I create a constellation of these and adjacent themes, all of which feel suddenly interrelated within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
works (in order of appearance)
Zoe and Juliet, winnowing (after Courbet), 2020-ongoing
embroidery on digitally manipulated reproduction of Gustav Courbet’s The Wheat Sifters (1854-1855), 9.7oz chenille
dimensions: 57 x 66 inches overall, folded
Leonard's livelihood (a partial archive), 2021-ongoing
a partial collection of unedited but resized photographs of gravestones and gravecovers made by the artist's great grandfather, located in Shellbrook, Snowden, Spalding, and Star City (SK), sourced from findagrave.com and courtesy of website vollunteers (Hollaw, Larry McKay, srleitch, Ruth McIvor, vintage vixen, DL, Diane A, Sigrid Olsen, trolles, pensh), 100lb cardstock, masking tape
dimensions: variable
back to position, 2021-ongoing
performance with beaded pillowcase from the artist’s childhood, knitted and crocheted blankets by Susan Bischoff and Ana Maria Marcu, additional blankets of sentimental origins, video projection on loop, various found yellow wallpapers and accompanying papers and foam, a photograph of the back steps in the artist's childhood home, gold and white nails, various masking tapes, homemade ice cream shaped as fruit (silicone molds made by Nina Lutgen), crystal bowl, glass bucket (made by Jean-Simon Trottier) for detritus and three glass jars for daily keeping, standing freezer, performance attendants (Aja Palmer, Ana Maria Marcu, Elliot Elliot), custom print pandemic masks, a depiction of the artist by Caitlin McGuire, metronome, used furniture, a small library, and a number of ornaments produced and arranged by the artist (a stained glass replica of the artist's bedroom window made by the artist, bad cell phone photos printed on photo paper, yellow and white flowers hung by a gold chain, bronze casts of the artist's left breast)
performance duration: 6 hours total daily, in 36 minute intervals, 10 times per day
video duration: 36 minutes, looped
Attempts at Preservation (artist book), 2021
spineless accordion fold artist book, printed (Japanese Kitakata and Kozuke paper), cut and bound by the artist, paperboard
dimensions: 6 x 5.5 inches
How to take care of an Aging Home (excerpts), 2021-ongoing
artist book, xeroxed and stapled
dimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches
sweet cracking pane, 2021
stained glass replica of the artist’s bedroom window, designed by the artist and produced by Clément Vieira
dimensions: 36 x 18 inches