Crisis Canon

Site-specific intervention, sandblasting, sound score and performance.

Stages Biennial Plug In ICA, 2019.

Located on the former test pile site of the British-American Concrete company in Winnipeg, Manitoba, this multi-disciplinary project plays with the misinterpretation of historical sites, viewing this unbuilt site as a portal to dream of alternative space-times outside of extractive capitalism. As part of the westward corporate colonial expansion, in the 1950s the BAC speculatively drove piles into the ground to test its load bearing and sinkage. Ultimately, the contract was awarded to another corporation, leaving a strange, neolithic-looking site, with multiple mounds of concentric circles and a large rectangular cube at the centre of the site.

Text sandblasted onto the concrete cube is loosely derived from a mistranslation of Lorem Ipsum, a 1st c. BCE Latin text, used as a placeholder in graphic design. The score uses the form of the canon and forms of vocal modulation traditionally only done electronically.

Live performance featuring sopranos Sarah Jo Kirsch and Zohreh Gervais, Bret Parenteau (electronics) and Doreen Girard (prepared tsymbaly).

Curated by Jenifer Papararo

Photos by Karen Asher and Robert Szcolnicki.

Four figures in grey hoodies stand in front of a monumental cement sculpture playing instruments and singing. On the left is Doreen Girard with brown hair in braids wrapped around her ears, she is standing in front of a table with an orange tablecloth, bowing a hammer dulcimer with a metal rod. At the middle of the frame are the sopranos Sarah Jo Kirsch and Zoreh Gervais, also in sweatsuits, Zoreh has her back to us, hood up, hands in pockets, looking at a music stand with the graphic score on it. Zoreh faces us, in cat eyeglasses, arms crossed, Bret at the far right stands in front of a silver hard case with wires spilling out of it looking down at the electronics he is playing with. it is outside on a sunny late afternoon with a small crowd watching them.

Outside on a sunny summer day with, a blue sky at the top of the image with a few fluffy clouds, the ground is a series of concentric concrete pillars jutting out of the ground. Some of them have mysterious inscriptions. At the top of the others, you can see the rebar exposed in a shape that looks like a small next.

A close-up of the top left corner of the Crisis Canon sculpture by AO on the background of a blue sky. On the porous grey surface of the cement is a section of the entire text sandblasted, so we only read "ITSELF LE" on the top row, 'SORROW" on the second, and the top part of the word "ITSELF" on the bottom row. Inside the letters, where the cement has been sandblasted away with a stencil, there is an aggregate of multicoloured rocks.

Outdoors, in front of the grey cement wall of AO Roberts' Crisis Canon sculpture, Bret Parenteau, a young Anishinabe artist in a grey sweatsuit with its hood over his black hat, looks down at the silver hard case of electronic he is playing that has cords spilling out over the top.

Outdoors a wide shot from across a field of wildflowers just gone to seed with fluffy white tops, it's nearing sunset, there is a wall of trees in the background, in the middle ground is a crowd watching the Crisis Canon performance with and speakers, benches. Behind the crowd is a concentric circle of tall concrete piles with a mound of earth that is ground between them, making a little hill.

A shot of the audience watching Crisis Canon performance. Some people sit on blankets, others on benches, all looking left off frame to where the performers are. In the background is a series of concrete piles, a wall of trees and a blue sky,

Four figures in grey sweatsuits stand in front of a monumental cement sculpture with the words "SORROW ITSELF LET IT BE SORROW" sandblasted repeatedly into it in a serif text, they are playing instruments and singing. On the left is Doreen Girard with brown hair in braids wrapped around her ears, she is standing in front of a table with an orange tablecloth, bowing a hammer dulcimer with a metal rod and looking towards the singers. In the middle of the frame are the sopranos Sarah Jo Kirsch and Zoreh Gervais, also in sweatsuits, both with their hoods up, singing into microphones facing each other and their music stands with a graphic score on it. Bret at the far right stands in front of a silver hard case with wires spilling out of it looking down at the electronics he is playing with. it is outside on a sunny late afternoon, and there are trees with green leaves behind them.

Sunset at the site of Crisis Canon, a wide shot across a field of wildflowers there is a stand of trees and a series of concentric circles of tall concrete piles with a mound of earth that is ground between them, making a little hill. In the foreground is a monumental grey concrete cube with the words "ITSELF LET IT BE SORROW LET US PURSUE IT LET IT BE SORROW" sandblasted in a serif text.

Crisis Canon sculpture was shot on a day with a pure blue sky, no clouds and all the trees and plants are very green. The sculpture is about 10 feet high, and 8 feet wide by 20 feet long. On the short face is sandblasted the text "SORROW ITSELF LET IT BE SORROW" on the long side is the serifed text, "ITSELF LET IT BE SORROW LET US PURSUE IT LET IT BE SORROW". The two planes meet each other at right angles so it suggests multiple ways of either linear reading or discontinuous.