.png){kind=logo}
KATHERINE MELANÇON (QC-CA)
& Anthurium Andreanum, Crassula Arborescens, Pilea Peperomioides, Saxifraga Stonolifera et Stromanthe Sanguinea, Epson 11000XL, Metashaphe, Qlone
Towards a Parliament of the Living I, 2019-2021
ELEKTRA GALLERY
AUGUST 28 - OCTOBER 2, 2021 Montreal, Canada
Opening - Saturday, August 28, 12-5PM
Tuesday – Friday: 10–5PM, Saturday: 12–5PM
BIO & STATEMENT
Lives and works in Montreal, QC, Canada
My practice is interested in process, nontraditional tools and materials and the use of camera less photography to reveal aspects of the natural.
Through cycles of transformation between the virtual and the physical, I create “new seeds” that I plant in different materials to discover what emerges. The starting point is often natural specimens from a specific location scanogramed.
Recently, I have encompassed interests for spiritual utopias and experimental projects. The concept of “flatness” interests me for its capacity to reboot societies under no, or different, hierarchies, including non-human people. Lately, I have been focusing on making nature control what humans create.
To extract, to model, to transfer, to assemble, to modify, to filter, to print, to edit, to export, to frame: to dominate.
What becomes of the world, including art, as we are witnessing " the collapse of human’s fantasy of control " (Eve Seguin)? What could become the experience of art if it was created with non-human people? And if we listened to it, paid it real attention and gave it the last word, what would the world be like?
The work humbly explores these big questions by handing to plants the control of their own representation. Three modes of image capture come together whose levels of sophistication are opposed: professional photogrammetry, 2D capture by a flatbed scanner and 3D capture with a free and amateur app. The result is a compression of multiple times and spaces into a cubistic sequence, compressing time and space, suggesting an attempt to flattened hierarchies in the goal to redesign our relations and organisation.
The work is a form of tribute to TV Garden by artist Nam June Païk.
Collaborators: Jean-François Clermont, Denis Le Breton, Pascale Tétrault, Thomas Watson
Materials: Arduino, flatscreens, animation created with photogrammetry + 2D scanography + 3D freeware, plants, soil.
Thanks: Yan (Ateliers Clark), Alain (Elektra), William et Dominic (Plantzy), Arissa Daniel-Leclerc (author), Eve Seguin (Political Scientist)
With the support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
