819-822-9600, ext. 2260 gallery@ubishops.ca

VIDEOTANK #15: DEMI MONDE / MOBILIZE

January 19 – March 11, 2017

Caroline Monnet

 

Demi Monde, 2013

Mobilize, 2015

Overview

Videotank is a video art series showing the work of renowned Canadian and international artists in a dedicated space inside the Foreman Art Gallery. In the Videotank # 15, Caroline Monnet, a multidisciplinary artist of Algonquin ancestry from Outaouais, presents two single-channel videos: Mobilize and Demi monde.

 

Guided expertly by those who live on the land and driven by the pulse of the natural world, Mobilize takes us on an exhilarating journey from the far north to the urban south. Over every landscape, in all conditions, everyday life flows with strength, skill and extreme competence. Mobilize is part of Souvenir, a four-film series commissioned by the National Film Board of Canada to address Aboriginal identity and representation by reworking material in the NFB’s archives. A distinct world—which is often an isolated part of a larger world—is viscerally envisioned in the uniquely hand-processed film Demi monde. The latter was commissioned by the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, in collaboration with the Independent Imaging Retreat (“Film Farm”).

Artist

Caroline Monnet works in film, video, installation, and silkscreen printing. Her works have shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, VIDEOFORMES (Clermont-Ferrand, France), Urban Shaman (Winnipeg), Māngere Arts Centre (Auckland, NZ), Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (Winnipeg) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin). Monnet is a member of the Indigenous collective ITWÉ.

”I created a film that can speak of tricksters and deeper inside worlds. I feel like sometimes we have an entire universe inside of us, filled with memories, emotions and reflections”–CM

”I wanted to speak about a people moving forward, a people that mobilizes itself and is far from being stagnant. We are comtemporary, culturally rooted and constantly on the move. I thought it was interesting to use old footage to speak about the future, to express an idea of contemporaneity while still honoring the past.”–CM