In collaboration with Ada X (Studio XX)
Virtual show + Window show
© Still Three windows, Aislinn Thomas, 2018.
To have more information or have access to the video, please visit the artist’ website.
Presented as part of the HTMlles Festival Three windows is an invitation to slowness and a more receptive mode of being. The video presents three windows in the artist’s home, sites of permeability, exchange and chance. Though at times subtle, the movement of the curtains and glow of light is oddly mesmerizing and reminiscent of breath.
This project and it’s companion piece, Three windows described by three voices…, grew out of a body of work that seeks to playfully reclaim domestic space as a site of imagination and possibility even and especially when it is not where a person would prefer to spend their time.
This project was commissioned by Tangled Art + Disability for The Human Flourishing Project. It has been exhibited at ArtSpin’s Holding Patterns at Planet Storage, Toronto and at Talk Back, Flux Factory, NY.
Three windows described by three voices. Anna Bowen describes the first, a window with cream-coloured curtains of varied lengths, hanging from a sagging rod, occasionally blowing in the breeze. Catherine Frazee describes the second, a window covered by dense, grey curtains that respond to a gentle wind, the light peeking around the edges alternately growing and diminishing. Laura Burke describes the third, a window with off-white curtains that are at times still and at others billowing out or sucked back against the window screen (either fully or partially), the play and glow of light animating the space.
Accompanying three windows, three writers were invited to respond to the video by creating an alternative audio description that functions as an artwork in itself. Writer and poet Anna Bowen, writer Catherine Frazee, and spoken-word poet and playwright Laura Burke crafted rich and nuanced works that push the conventions of audio description, mining the imaginative and poetic potential of this act of sensory translation.
To have more information or have access to the video, please visit the artist’ website.
You can find the paper version zine of the exhibition at these different locations :
• Librairie Dawn & Quaterly : 211 Bernard W. Street, Montreal, QC.
• L’Eguélionne : 1426 Beaudry Street, Montreal, QC.
• Or by appointment at communications@articule.org.
Aislinn Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes video, performance, sculpture, installation, and text. She culls material from everyday experiences and relationships, creating work that ranges from poignant to absurd–at times straddling both. Her recent projects explore the generative nature of disability by pushing up against conventional access measures, treating access as an artform in itself.
Recent and upcoming exhibitions include the WRO Media Arts Biennial (Wroclaw, Poland), Flux Factory (Queens, NY), Science Gallery Lab (Detroit, MI), Tangled Art + Disability (Toronto, ON), The New Gallery (Calgary, AB), Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, ON), Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (Halifax, NS), articule (Montreal, QC), and C Magazine. Commissioned projects include A piece of cloth, held taut for the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention for the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
Exhibition’s text
Three windows
by Victoria Platel
HTMlles is a festival in media arts and digital culture that brings together local, national and international artists, scholars, and activists who are passionate about critical engagement with new technologies from feminist perspectives. Each edition explores urgent socio-political questions through a series of exhibitions, round tables, conferences, performances and workshops.
Associated event
Discussion
Aislinn Thomas & Sean Lee in conversation
In this informal conversation Sean Lee and Aislinn Thomas will discuss Aislinn's project, Three windows and their reflections on Crip time* in pandemic time.
This discussion is accompanied by an ASL interpreter.