No 1 - Mouvement
Automne 2023 ++
- Élise Ares Poliquin
- Jonathan Stack
- Noa Blanche Beschorner
- Mariana Chajon
- Josephine « Jo » Campbell Lashuk
- Gabriel Barbeau
- Joss D’Alton
- Clémentine Landry
- Gia Lamothe
- Camille Ares Poliquin
- Pablo Antonio Vargas Venegas
- Yann Pariot
- Dennis Belopolsky
No 2 - Passages
Printemps 2024 ++
1. Jérémy Gagnon
2. Ashton Diduck
3. Romane Pilote
4. Justine Lacoste
5. Filémon Brault-Archambeault
6. Noa Blanche Beschorner
7. Emma Roufs
8. Samy Benammar
9. Mary-Kim Caron
10. Neltje Green
11. Jonathan Stack
12. Jacob Mahfoud
13. Samuel Terry Pitre
14. Loup Gauvin-Dufresne
15. Ribs Beauchamp
16. Camille Ares Poliquin
17. Pablo Antonio Vargas Venegas
No 3 - La lenteur
À venir...Jacob Mahfoud
Passages & Gazes
Translated from French by Filémon Brault-ArchambeaultAmong the straight lines of a kitchen refined by contemporary life stands a lonely figure. Their breath, suspended in a hazy exhale, underlines their gaze, tethered to the outside. Their gesture, captured in momentary curiosity, gives life to the different possibilities of what could have drawn them to the window. A scene that they prefer to observe from a hiding spot, behind the mist of their puff. A noisy car passing by, perhaps. Impromptuconstruction work, à la Montréalaise. Or protesters interrupting the usual silence of the street.
The street – once animated by intermittent presences, unforeseen road events, and sounds getting tangled up in cacophonic ensembles – slowly gets tamed by the predictable and systematic life rhythm of the neo-liberal era. Yet it remains a space where each passerby gives a passing and free show to the tiny curious, bored, or stressed heads who are looking stealthily through the window to get a break from their daily ardors, even if the scene offered to them is becoming increasingly redundant. In fact, as an adept of shows offered by the window, I do not feel any guilt, no more than Carl Holsøe’s women, in their desire to contemplate the world from behind windows, without being observed. What surprises me, however, is how recently this image was painted. I wonder whether there still are, nowadays, people who look through windows for pleasure since, in contemporary life, it is unnecessary to catch a scene from the street or from public spaces to entertain oneself. Nowadays, it is rather the stage which is looking for its spectators, through the intermediary of a monolith similar to that of Kubrick in 2001: Space Odyssey, a refined minimalistic device with straight lines that grafted itself to our daily lives.
The screen, real window on the world, skims electronic realms in search of instant shows, free and custom-made, “ready-to-watch” and adapted to the tastes of the viewer who sees the scenes scroll by – without being seen. Today, my screen – flooded with horrifying scenes of blood-covered children, missiles hitting Khan Younes and Rafah, mutilated bodies of Gazans extracted from the rubble – serves me the electronic debris of a genocide, for my consumption. On the street, when I merge with a massive growl demanding a ceasefire, I catch myself systematically screaming “ready-to-shout’s”, hymns that I learned from the screen, that follow me everywhere, in all the protests I attend, in New York as in Montreal or elsewhere. When I feel choked by the hold of words, I look up to catch a break from the show I’m participating in. I then encounter the gaze of the tiny, perched heads discretely observing from behind the window, holding their device. I recognize among them the figure from the painting. Holding their cigarette in one hand and their device in the other, they are filming both the protesters and their spectators, thus adding to the electronic universe, constantly expanding, the recording of a show that has become redundant as well.
The passage of protesters; of strikers; of families in distress; of electoral candidates handing out pamphlets; of drunk homeless people putting out their hands; of the indifferent spectators – these passages, for the figure in the window, do not spark a reaction anymore.
