PROJECT // Hétérotopias – Gardens
HéTéROTOPIAS – Gardens is a work in which the movements of dancers and costume-sculptures merge into strange creatures, straddled between abstraction and figuration, whose surfaces are constantly changing; unfolding in infinity. Heterotopia, from the ancient Greek: (tópos, “”place””) and from (heteros, “”other””). The term was coined in 1967 by the philosopher Michel Foucault, in a text titled “Others spaces” to describe the utopian micro-spaces that exist within society but outside its social norms; worlds in the world that inspire new perceptions and behavior. HéTéROTOPIAS proposes an opening onto “other places”, places that are suspended between reality and fiction, between natural and artificial, geometry and organicity. A version of this worked will be performed as part of Festival FURIES in July, 2022.
BIO // Sarah Wendt and Pascal Dufaux share an artistic practice that takes form in sculpture, media arts, installation and dance. Since 2016, they have developed and presented projects that turn the lens onto the body, space and objects. Their collaborative methodology seeks to imbue their projects with strange forms of temporality and heightened articulations of labor to draw forward an environment that melds science fiction to reality. In their work, moving images meet choreography and sculpture to create a pop apocalyptic world, crossed by surrealist and hybrid presences, human – geology – plant, evolving against the backdrop of the Anthropocene. Their work has been presented at artist-run centers, art museums and dance festivals in Canada, in Belgium, and in the UK, including: Axenéo7, Gatineau, Quebec; Confederation Center of the Arts, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Mois Multi Festival, Quebec City, Quebec; OFFTA Festival d’Arts Vivants, Montreal, Quebec; Tangente, Montreal, Quebec; Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal, Quebec; Musée d’Art Contemporaine des Laurentides, St. Jerome, Quebec; Musée d’art de Joliette, Joliette, Quebec; Take me Somewhere Festival, Glasgow, UK.
DETAILS //
Collaborators: Karen Fennell, Lucy Fandel, Nien Tzu Weng
Past collaborators include: Anne Paré, Dominique Pétrin, Megan Broome, Callista Gilks, Isaac Bryant, Agnes Adjei
Support by: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec, Art in the Open, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Antigonight, N.S., Musée d’art de Joliette, Festival FURIES, La Serre / OFFTA Festival d’arts vivant