Ici/Now 2023

MAI Session

Created during a residency at MAI in Montréal from January to May 2023.

This second residency was 40 hours of research and exploration for Ici/Now 202x.

When you ask to get validation, or at the very least a sign that you might be on to something, the answer usually comes straight to you. Especially if you ask for it specifically. This was true of the first residency I was awarded and confirmed with this second one.

During these 40 hours, I was able to dive deeper in this exploration, coming away with several iterations of this project. What started out as a study on repetition with specific parameters turned out to be a life changing experience for me. It stirred a desire I have to tell a story (mine though insignificant it might be).

As an artist of a certain age with varied experiences, I can relate to what Walt Whitman wrote: “The difference between my youth which was my spring, and these forty years, and they are my autumn, is the very difference that exists between flower and fruit.” The idea of passing years — experience versus relying on youth and innocence — will very much be at the centre of this residency. With life, our bodies not only frays with entropy, but it also affects our spirit, softens our need for vanity and reveals all the beauty around us that we might have missed. We become ourselves more yet more “unselved” and embrace our interdependence with others and the world.

And from the very beginning, I chose to do this project simply, with modest means: 1 fixed camera (an iPhone), no edit (just the exact video superimposed with another), available lighting, a repetitive track I made on Garage Band, and the emotions I would otherwise keep bottled up: the impatience, the awkwardness, the inadequacy, the rigidity, the solitude.

It’s just me. Hoping to be seen for who I am. Ici and now.

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I am indebted to Nicole at MAI for her vision, encouragement and support.