In his 1980 text, L’invention du quotidian [translated into The Practice of Everyday Life in 1984] French philosopher, Michel de Certeau, distinguishes the difference between daily existence and ‘everyday life’, based mainly on the notion that ‘everyday life’ is repetitive and unconscious. de Certeau explains that people individualize mass culture by altering the quotidian [objects, laws of language, and most importantly to my thesis, ritual]. With this in mind, I invited Winnipeg-based artists: Leah Decter, Michael Dudeck, and Freya Björg Olafson to devise projects that would be performative with an additional residual component to act as installations at PLATFORM for the remaining weeks of the exhibition.
-J.J. Kegan McFadden
ARCANA | Carmen Hathaway
Website Commission Project
Presented in conjunction with RITUALIZ’D, PLATFORM is pleased to announce the launch of a newly commissioned web-based work by Portage La Prairie / Abenaki First Nation artist Carmen Hathaway. The artist’s newest digital work, Arcana, considers notions of ritual in family history, with a focus stemming from several sets of Tarot cards left to Hathaway, painted and illustrated by her maternal grandmother in Europe in the early 1900’s.