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Had We but World Enough, and Time
September 8th — October 16th, 2021
Project description
Had We but World Enough, and Time is an exhibition that brings together photographs by Clara Lacasse and a short film by the Primordial Dismemberment collective.
Lacasse’s photographs document the renovation of the Montréal Biodôme. In highlighting the artificiality of the space and questioning the significance of this renovation in light of the accelerating ecological crisis, the artist underlines the urgency to rethink our conception of nature.
In the short film Sadovnik by Primordial Dismemberment, similar spaces, including the Jardin Botanique de Montréal and the Marie-Victorin Herbarium, serve as the backdrop to a science fiction story depicting a future in which life can only exist under a protective dome. The nostalgia for Earth expressed by the film’s astronauts elicits our own nostalgia for a natural world untainted by human influence, like the one presented at the Montréal Biodôme.
In creating a dialogue between documentary and speculative approaches, the exhibition reflects upon the way in which our present time is haunted by idealized conceptions of the past and future, while affirming the relevance of science fiction as a tool for interpreting the contemporary world.
Clara Lacasse would like to thank the Biodôme of Montréal’s team, especially Etienne Laurence, Yves Paris, Johanne Gravel and Pierre Castagner, Joséphine Waline Ndour at the Archives of Montréal, the Boréalis laboratory, the Milieu Institute Post Image Cluster, Toronto Image Works, the VU centre, Ji-Yoon Han, Martin Schop, Anne-Renée Hotte, Lise Boisseau, François Lacasse and Manolis Daris for their support.
Primordial Dismemberment thanks the Geoffrey Hall’s team of the Marie-Victorin Herbarium, the Cosmodome of Montréal, the Montréal Tower, Ingrid Bachmann, Marie Charbonneau, Amanda Dawn Christie, Christine Daris, Paloma Daris, Julie Favreau, Ji-Yoon Han, Clara Lacasse, Monique Moumblow, Juliette Nadeau, Félix-Antonin Noël, Michel Patenaude, Dominique Rivard, Martin Schop, and Kathryn Warner.
The artists would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for their support.
Photo Credit: Guy L’Heureux
Clara Lacasse is interested in the construction of narratives related to history, nature, science and the collective imagination. Through work focused on the photographic image, she supports a critical reflection on visual culture and on the image as an instrument of knowledge and power. Her projects are often realized in collaboration with scientific, medical, legal or cultural organizations. Through these partnerships, she bears witness to the complex dialogue between science and culture by questioning their inherent truths. Lacasse holds a BFA with a major in photography from Concordia University. In 2019, she participated in a research-creation residency in Fermont as part of PANACHE art actuel’s programming (Sept-Îles) and received a development and support grant from VU, centre de diffusion et de production de la photographie (Québec City). Focusing on Montreal Biodome’s recent renovations, her first solo exhibition was presented in 2021 by Galerie d’art Desjardins (Drummondville). She has received financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts e t des Lettres du Québec.
Primordial Dismemberment is a video art duo founded in Montreal in 2019 by Thomas L. Archambault and Manolis Daris, both studio arts graduates at Concordia University. In their science-fiction short film, Sadovnik, artificial intelligence becomes a fantomatic relic of the Earth and of humanity, in a future where both their fates are incertain. Following the reception of a research and creation grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2020, the duo has begun working on a second film; a dystopian epic that tells the story of the pre-socratic philosopher Empedocles’ future reincarnations. Had We but World Enough, and Time is the collective’s first exhibition.
Text by Ji-Yoon Han
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