1998
Une resistance certaine
Oil stick drawings on gridded glass window panels and photographic reproductions temporarily installed as part of L'Art inquiet. Motifs d'engagement group exhibition curated by Louise Déry at the Gallery of University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM).

Photography Credit: Patrick Altman

Having worked on the crocheting all Fall and watching the development of the pattern as a direct result of my engagement and sharing with the people who chose to intervene, I was reminded how usually we begin with a pattern and create the object from it. Here the inverse was true. I had no pattern prior to the activity and involvement. The pattern of social interactions was a by-product or energy made visible. For the work at UQAM, I inscribed the exact pattern resulted from the crocheting into the glass wall's separating the gallery from the University. The grid provided by the security feature in the glass itself was the matrix. The glass in this case served as indexical agent and reference but also as a mediating entity of "betweeness". Each square was marked with either a yellow or purple oil pastel, denoting the patterns in the original stitching.

On the night of the opening, I sat in the gallery space and began to unravel the stitching, forcing many comments and not just a few objections from the audience. This intervention created another layer of discussion and questioning about the function of object, the importance of process and the nature of dwelling from within. The unravelled work then was installed on a glass shelf along with some highly manipulated photographic traces reproduced in monochrome purple on transparent film of my street experiences - moments captured and then almost forgotten, but for the photograph.