Louis Henderson, Bring Breath to the Death of Rocks, 2018. Film still. Super 16 mm film transferred in HD, colour, sound, 26 min. Courtesy of the artist.
The Canadian curator Denise Ryner proposes an embodied approach to historical archives in a decolonizing perspective.
Sedimentation is a geological process of settlement and solidification. Free-floating fragments come to rest at the bottom of a body of water where over time they lose their liquid content. Then gravitational pressure transforms these fragments into solid rock beds that not only become a firm base, but each layer serves as a record of human and natural activity.
The six artists in this exhibition re-imagine the archive as these material fragments that may narrate presences, proximities and solidarities.
Sandra Brewster (Canada), Filipa César (Portugal), Justine A. Chambers (Canada), Louis Henderson (G.-B.), Pamila Matharu (Canada) and Krista Belle Stewart (Syilx Nation) present image, sonic and performance recontextualizations of state and official repositories, as well as familial and personal documents, to engage the archival image as counter-image through collapses of time, embodied memory, witnessing and storytelling.
Curator Denise Ryner will present the exhibition on Saturday, February 4, at 2 p.m. followed by the opening at 3 p.m..