2021 Festival ←

Alana Bartol, Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Tsēmā Igharas Groundwork

Critical Distance Centre for Curators
Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Corps roca, 2018 – ongoing. Documentation of performance, as part of a residency at Verticale — centre d’artistes, Laval, Quebec. Courtesy of the artist.
Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Corps roca, 2018 – ongoing. Documentation of performance, as part of a residency at Verticale — centre d’artistes, Laval, Quebec. Courtesy of the artist.
Alana Bartol , Dowser, 2016. Documentation of performance at orphan well site in Three Hills, Alberta. Photo by Karin McGinn. Courtesy of the artist.
Alana Bartol , Dowser, 2016. Documentation of performance at orphan well site in Three Hills, Alberta. Photo by Karin McGinn. Courtesy of the artist.
Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Corps roca, 2018 – ongoing. Documentation of performance, as part of a residency at Verticale — centre d’artistes, Laval, Quebec. Courtesy of the artist.
Ileana Hernandez Camacho, Corps roca, 2018 – ongoing. Documentation of performance, as part of a residency at Verticale — centre d’artistes, Laval, Quebec. Courtesy of the artist.
Tsēmā Igharas, (Re)Naturalize No.1 (Brick), 2015-16. Photo by Jonathan Igharas. Courtesy of the artist.
Tsēmā Igharas, (Re)Naturalize No.1 (Brick), 2015-16. Photo by Jonathan Igharas. Courtesy of the artist.
Tsēmā Igharas, real camo, 2019
Tsēmā Igharas, real camo, 2019

The term “extractivism” simultaneously evokes a physical process as well as a mindset, implying a forceful removal and subsequent severing of relations. By intersecting strands of ecology, geology, and performance theory, Groundwork examines how land-based actions can challenge the colonial-capitalist framework of extractivism.

Within the scope of Canada’s geography, the three artists featured in this exhibition use performance as a way to imagine beyond the current structures that regulate humanity’s relationship with the environment. With the aim of destabilizing the logics and visualities of the Anthropocene, Groundwork highlights the performative strategies of camouflage: practices that critically probe the politics surrounding land and the constructed binary between the human and non-human. In considering human-centred discourses of the environment, the artists together unsettle extractivism as the status quo through an embodied ethics of remediation. This reciprocal approach is articulated through the deep attunement they cultivate with their environments—gesturing towards an alternate future created in relation with the non-human.

Featuring lens-based documentation of the artists’ site-specific interventions, displayed alongside performance remnants including garments and tools, the works transmit dispatches from each location.

Curated by Valérie Frappier

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