13 Dec 6 janvier 2017

Rencontre du conseil spécial chez Raymonde

Jin, MC, Velibor, Raymonde

Nous avons maintenant un titre pour l’exposition : How Many Seas.

Nous allons ajouter au nom de chaque image son année de production et le lieu où elle a été créée, et intégrer sur les tirages mêmes un court texte, une légende, qui « narrera » chaque image en quelques phrases. Plutôt que des détails techniques, cela fera entendre nos voix. Nos photos proviennent de différents lieux, même de différents pays, et présentent des sujets et des paysages lointains et proches qui dialogueront avec l’horizon, les bateaux, les promeneurs.

Chih-Chien: So I took a photo of the water, and I looked at it for a while, maybe a day or two, and thought of the shape of the waves and how the time flew. Gradually the water started to move, then again the movement turned into a photo. It shifted between action and stillness as if time somehow was trapped but sometimes wasn’t.

 MC: The only way out of Gagnon, a mining town in Northern Québec, was by plane or train. The airstrip was the main connection to the rest of the world and, despite his fear of flying, Daniel flew to Baie-Comeau often to attend school or figure skating competitions.

 Celia: Excavations began in 1863. Many of the monuments at the Kerameikos site are plaster replicas, as the originals are housed in museums. The walls of the adjacent Kerameikos Archaeological Museum are extended by several porticoes that run along its perimeter. The river Eridanos is nearby.

 Jin: Goryeong in 2013. Mountains, electric fans, drawers, chairs and mirrors, bricks and bookshelves, shelves and coat hangers. Roads, cars, power lines, and heatwave. And the walls that only came up to my chest.

 Bogdan: She would never give you a cigarette break! Work without rest! Let’s work, but like humans! Why should I work like a madman? I look at my plate. What is the use of these leftovers? Nothing edible about it. Just bones. — He will soon have his pay. The twenty-first or the twenty-second. You would not see him again, except that he has nowhere to go. He will come back. He will spend his money. He will exhaust everything in one day.

 Jessica: As I approached the bend in the road, I stopped to watch the snow squalls as they glided up the fjord. White against grey. White folding over blue. Behind me, the town which rests in the shadow of the mountains for months at a time somehow shone in a warmer, more welcoming light. After taking an especially deep breath, I continued straight for the dense blanket of snow ahead, believing that eventually I would come out the other side.

 Jacques:The cold breeze led us to an icicle field; we would not progress further on that day.

 Velibor: Who did a fourteenth-century stone mason in the village of Fatnica in Herzegovina have in mind carving this man and woman, bit by bit? The deceased? Or did he see his heroic self, sword in hand, protecting a beautiful neighbour he was in love with?

 Raymonde: June 1978. It is a hot early summer day in the Lower Town of Québec City. With my friend Fabienne, we are looking for a new space for our artist-run centre. We peek through the vitrines of vacant stores, ring the doorbells of office buildings, write down a few phone numbers. A sudden gust of wind rises, announcing a thunderstorm.

Lise: There were many indistinguishable days, many indistinguishable walks up and down the beach in search of something, or nothing: a nothing to set apart, a nothing that corresponded with something in me that I couldn’t identify until I saw its shape in the world.

Andrea: I found myself in the possession of a large and imposing nineteenth-century art history book with doublure binding and guilt edges. Slowly, I began to claim the book as my own by cutting out some images and gluing in others. On this particular page, the disjointed worlds of the opera and fishermen coexist.

Après avoir fait des tests, nous décidons de positionner les légendes latéralement, ce qui accordera aux passants la liberté de les lire ou non. Elles seront aussi traduites en hindi. Nous sommes loin de nous douter que le passage à un autre alphabet engendrera l’apparition de coquilles que nous ne pourrons pas déceler avant l’impression.

Velibor et Jin confirment qu’ils rejoindront Raymonde à Mumbai pour l’installation et le début de l’exposition. Nous ferons les impressions à Montréal, et ils les apporteront en Inde.

Quelques jours plus tard, les billets sont réservés, et le jour du départ en Inde approche !