What we bring into becoming

Work by - Annie Charland Thibodeau, MFA Performing Arts Graduate
 
Where:  Tunglið Art Space, Lækjargata 2a, 101 Reykjavík
When: August 20st - 23rd
Duration: Open from 9 am to 11 am and from 5 pm to 8 pm | Closes at 11 am on August 23rd
Audience number:   2 - 6 each half hour
 
Open for booking HERE
 
What we bring into becoming invites an audience to think about how monument and monumentality can be seen as unique and ever-changing phenomena that shape and are shaped by their environment.  
 
The exhibition explores how we may instil the phenomenological affects of surveying a landscape to the design of monuments. The aim is neither to reduce human perception of a natural phenomenon to a standard defined experience, nor to reminisce about a personal journey. This approach is rather that of solicitude towards what is before us. It aims to elicit a specific perspective on the performative potential of objects : we encounter steady objects that embrace and reveal the complexities of their host environment. 
 
The monument’s closeness to the ground activates our slow wanderings — its presence raises awareness of our own stature in a given site, highlighting the interchangeable roles of the viewer and the viewee in the spaces we inhabit. Such monuments, like inland rocks that may seem static, are empowered with a humbleness that enables their presence to act as a lever.   
 
The audience is invited to inhabit this momentary public space in small groups and to engage with a mini book inspired by encounters around the remains of Helgustaðanáma quarry and the presence of Steining in Icelandic architecture. 
 
Thanks: 
 
To my Mentors 
Unnar Örn Jónasson Auðarson 
Angela Rawlings 
 
To all those who helped me with the exhibition project
(technical, transport, orders, organisation) 
Unnar Örn Jónasson Auðarson 
Oddur Wilhelm Guðmundsson 
Steinþór Hannes Gissurarson 
Sigurður Atli Sigurðsson 
Egill Ingibergsson 
Brett Smith 
Michael Richardt 
Paul Gibson 
 
To all those who inspired and collaborated on the book project 
Kristján Leósson 
Sofia Nannini 
Snæbjörn Guðmundsson 
Haraldur Jónsson 
Melanie Noel 
Angela Rawlings 
Unnar Örn Jónasson Auðarson 
Litten Nystrøm 
 
To my program directors 
Brogan Davison 
Alexander Graham Roberts 
 
To my beloved classmates, my supportive overseas partner, and all the wonderful people I have met on this beautiful island.  
 
Takk fyrir allt, kæru vinir.
 
portrait_annie.jpg
 
Bio:
Annie Charland Thibodeau lives and works in Quebec (Canada).  
Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions in various artist-run centres, contemporary events, and institutions in Quebec—notably Circa art actuel (2021), Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts (2018) and The National Contemporary Sculpture Biennial BNSC (2022). Abroad, Annie has participated in residency programs in Ireland, Italy, Iceland, and Slovenia.  
Her practice in sculpture develops around the performative potential of monumentality. Engaging an artistic practice-as-research methodology, her expeditions to abandoned and active stone quarries have resulted in the collection and re-presentation of materials (limestone, granite, marble) that convey strong monumental charges for the witness. In spite of their imposing statures, her sculptures are endowed with the power to activate consideration of human relationships to space. These monuments enact momentary, modular, and equivocal proposals through which Annie interrogates abstract concepts like time and spatiality.