Performance Evening — Possible awakenings #5 (2019)

Sophie Castonguay will not be performing solo. She will carry with her the traces of a remarkable book about letting go, about the dangers of living together, about the need to abandon the private sphere and imposed identities, about the urgency, not to make a name for oneself, but to conquer anonymity in order to reveal our being-in-common. This book is Foucault anonymat by Érik Bordeleau. Given the intention is for art to transcend visual boundaries and strengthen the ties between members of the social body (Ardenne, 2002), the vocals of this work will be performed by several people: Merveille Bombardier, Joelle Charest, Ariane Demers, Valentin Favre, David Gagnon, Frédérique Girard, Manon Hébert, Miori Lacerte-Lamontagne, Catherine Laforest, Myriam Le Ber Assiani, Gabriel Leclerc, Camille Martin and Jessica Spencer. The human voice has an intrinsically hauntological quality to it that goes beyond words, carrying with it the memory of the speaker’s past. It is the vessel par excellence of what remains off-camera, invisible, indeterminate. In this way it isthe source of a much welcomed subversiveness.

Sophie Castonguay develops performative devices in which she stages the speech of the spectators. These stagings are generally held in exhibition venues or in public spaces allowing the development of stories specific to the place. Through the use of narrative modalities, she tries to create interference in the reception of the work and / or in the perception of the place. She thus works in the interval between the tangible image and the projected one, and questions the relations between the visible and what is said. 

Combining the worlds of literature, visual arts, and performance, Francys Chenier’s unique interdisciplinary practice can turn anything—a personal collection, a public library, a bookstore shelf or a notebook—into a polyphonic narrative waiting to be revealed. Informed by the modernist legacy of 20th century avant-garde (calligrams, automatic and exploréen writing, spoken word) his research feeds at once off the graphical (typescript, manuscript) and typographical dimensions of writing, the materiality of books (binding, micropublishing) and prints (posters, pamphlets), as well as on the music, sound and metrics of poetry. (Martin Dufrasne)

Francys Chenier observes a singular interdisciplinary practice that interweaves literary, visual and performative worlds, making a personal collection, a public library, a bookstore or a notepad; a potential polyphony to be revealed. Building on the heritage of the avant-garde and the modernity of the twentieth century, his research feeds as much on the graphic and typographic dimensions of writing, the materiality of the book object and the printing arts, as the musical and metrics of poetry.