Of all the places brings together three artists whose video, installation, performance and photography offer an intense and intimate invitation into imaginary, mysterious and science fiction-like worlds. Shared between Amalie Atkins, Julie Favreau and Jacynthe Carrier is not only the carefully choreographed movement of actor and object within hypnotic spaces but also what appears to be some unnamed fable or parable. Yet these allegories do not serve to edify or to moralize. Feats of strength or will are played out through the ritualized, slow and laboured interaction with and the movement and collection of seemingly symbolic objects. These ambiguous narratives meander through familiar and unfamiliar landscapes, never quite arriving at any one conclusion, but always reaching towards new possibilities.
Exhibition Essay by Noa Bronstein and Kegan McFadden
Amalie Atkins is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Saskatoon. She creates cinematic fables through a blend of film, textiles, installations, performance, and photography, imprinting a fictional world onto everyday life. Atkins’ work has shown nationally and internationally and toured with major survey exhibitions, most notably, Oh, Canada (MASS MoCA) and DreamLand (The Textile Museum of Canada). Her photographs have appeared on the covers of Canadian Art Magazine, Visual Arts News, Grain Magazine, CV2, and in MUZE magazine (Paris). Atkins was the recipient of the Locale Art Award for Western Canada in 2011 and long listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2012 and 2013. Recent exhibitions include We live on the edge of disaster and imagine we are in a musical at the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina), SAAG (Lethbridge) and the College Galleries (Saskatoon), Wundermärchen, at the Kenderdine Art Gallery (Saskatoon), and Little Black Listening Hut, commissioned by Remai Modern for Nuit Blanche (Saskatoon). In 2015 her work appeared in exhibitions at the Gerald Moore Galley (London, UK), Schleifmühlgasse 12-14 (Vienna), and at NPAK/ACCEA in Yerevan, Armenia.
Jacynthe Carrier explores, through photography and video, the different ways we occupy and alter modern-day territories. Her works have been shown in several solo and group exhibitions, including at Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains, la nuit blanche de Paris, Québec triennale, Québec biennale, and Interstate Projects. Her videos have been included in a number of programs, most notably in Europe, Brazil and the United Sates. In 2012 she received the Montreal Pierre-Ayot Prize, and was longlisted for the 2013 Sobey Art Award. She is represented by the antoine ertaskiran gallery in Montreal.
Julie Favreau’s practice, located at the crossroads of visual art and choreography, is based on inventing gestures out of objects (sculptures) or, conversely, on inventing sculptures out of gestures. Recent works induce a state of heightened sensory awareness in the viewer, inviting concentration, focus, and intimacy. Favreau has presented/performed her work in many contexts including exhibitions, festivals and performances on stage. In 2011 she was part of the MACM Québec Triennial. Recent awards include: Pierre Ayot Prize - AGAC City of Montreal,The Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art and a nomination on the long list for the Sobey Art Award. In residence for three years at the Montreal studios of the Darling Foundry, she is working on a new creative cycle that includes sculptural propositions, video and photographic works for various sites: Gallery 44 (Toronto), Edinburgh art festival - Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Scotland), Battat Contemporary and Darling Foundry (Montreal).
