Jacynthe Carrier

CYCLE
03.03–04.09.2016
Room 2

Jacynthe Carrier has developed an extensive photo- and video-based practice that examines the body’s relationship to its environment. The artist is drawn to transitory places, such as vacant lots and fallow fields, and looks at ways in which we occupy and describe these territories. Within these sites, she stages various scenes as tableaux vivants that act as vectors that inscribe the landscape. In her previous work, in particular her series Ritesand Scène de genres, domestic objects such as lamps, lampshades, televisions, chairs, mattresses and furniture, are playful elements that are used to construct various vignettes in unlikely places. Since presenting her exhibition Parcours, at Occurrence in 2013, the artist’s approach to the mise en scène has shifted slightly. Now, both the objects and the protagonists’ performances have been pared down, opting to focus on what is readily at hand, on site, with a minimal use of additional props. In her video Cycle, performers mainly occupy themselves with rocks in the landscape. Here, we see a series of micro-interventions, captured far more intimately than in her previous videos. Carrier focuses mainly on the presence of the body and its gestures within a site, and how each interacts with the other. She seems to highlight the idea of the tableau vivant, where the staging of a scene has a theatrical, almost epic quality to it. Here, the camera draws in on the human element while distancing itself from the immensity of the landscape, although it too, remains present. Cycle brings forth awareness of a poetic universe that welcomes contemplation. It shows a collective of people working together to change their environment through a series of gestures that repeat within a given period of time.

The artist has formed a poetic, performative space, where the geographic location remains vague, but informed by the sound of water lapping on the riverbank. The characters are mainly occupied by the act of collecting. Each performs a different task: carrying, arranging, washing, colouring, etc.; tasks that could be considered unproductive, but which nonetheless transform the landscape and shape the environment. These micro-gestures are all conducive to a form of contemplation and introspection. No one speaks within the group, but a shared sense of purpose is still felt in their togetherness. Each person must accomplish an action in relation to the others. Through this, one witnesses a caring gesture by a temporary community brought together to transform this plot of land. Beyond the realm of the visible, Cycle addresses these intimate and performative transformations at a sensorial and poetic level.