La rencontre at La Maison des artistes visuels francophones, Winnipeg
By Jenny Western
La rencontre, meaning “encounter” or “meeting” in French, is an exhibition involving tea as a site of encounter. Presented at La Maison des artistes in partnership with Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art and curated by Fait Maison (a collective made up of Thomas Grondin, Anna Khimasia, and Theo Pelmus), La rencontre brings together artists KC Adams, Jaime Black-Morsette, Freya Björg Olafson, Reza Rezaï, Fredrick Lyle Spence, and Camille-Zoé Valcourt-Synnott. Throughout the exhibition, tea is the common component by which to explore peoples, cultures, histories, and art. What we see in the gallery is the residual evidence of past performative work around this theme displayed in objects and video.
(photo: Adventure Within Media Inc.)
Valcourt-Synnott’s installation encourages viewers to brew a cup of tea and have a seat at a table where napkins are embossed with the piece’s title: Please take a break. Used cups are then added to a growing sculpture of dirty dishes on a nearby shelf. The artist uses strategies from relational aesthetics to instigate the audience into participating as additional collaborators.
(photo: Adventure Within Media Inc.)
Reza Rezaï’s Your hair in coils, a scorpion tail, akin to the moon draws the viewer in with its placement of attractive Persian rugs on the floor, creative use of sugar cubes and tea glasses, and the curious audio device at its centre. From the headphones comes the voice of Rezaï’s sister singing songs in Farsi. The set up is inviting and even without knowing the words, there is an urge to participate in the suggested ritual.
(photo: Adventure Within Media Inc.)
Jaime Black-Morsette’s Inheritance is an installation made up of a video work and sculptural elements, all drawing on smashed china tea cups and an arresting buffalo skull. The thematic references the destruction of the buffalo herds as an act of colonial genocide as well as the historic consumption of buffalo bone to produce fine china. It is a powerful message reminiscent of Dana Claxton’s seminal 1997 piece Buffalo Bone China.
(photo: Sarah Lamontagne)
KC Adams and Frederick Lyle Spence collaborate on Muskeg Time for a performance with Adams’ mother and Spence’s son. A recording of the event is displayed on a video monitor with related ephemera such as handmade porcelain cups, cedar, and processed foods included in the gallery installation. It is a commentary on the collision of Indigenous and Settler culture, and its impact on food security, culture, and land.
(photo: Sarah Lamontagne)
Freya Björg Olafson’s video work Default Object, Inherited Ritual stands apart aesthetically from the rest of the exhibition with its technological bent, yet it is the piece that most pushes the show conceptually. Using the “Utah Teapot,” one of computer graphics’ earliest rendered 3D models, an onscreen avatar version of Olafson is live animated while she gives a performance-lecture within an inset window. The artist nudges the viewer to contemplate the nature of interactivity – both the virtual and the actual. Within an exhibition centred on meeting and encountering, this is a worthy consideration.
While at times La rencontre feels like arriving late to a tea party that everyone just left, it is a nice show to visit on an afternoon in late summer when you want to ponder the cultural implications of tea over a cuppa.
La rencontre continues until September 20
La Maison des artistes visuels francophones: https://maisondesartistes.mb.ca/
The gallery is partially accessible.
Jenny Western is a curator, writer, and educator who lives in Manitoba’s Interlake region.