Three Cities: Prayer & Protest

Three Cities: Prayer & Protest is a shadow-based installation that investigates sites of tension, controversy, and contrast within three contemporary cosmopolitan environments. Inspired by recent events in three cities the artists have lived and worked in (Istanbul, Montreal and Vancouver) the exhibition explores notions of prayer & protest as communal expressions of personal hope, desire, demand and outrage.

Each ‘city’ becomes a palimpsest in which layers of social, cultural, economic, and political differences come into dialogue. Made from intricately cut paper sculptures, each city is presented as as "island". These islands are explored by the viewer with the use of mobile lights created for the installation. As the viewer moves through the space, the miniature paper imagery comes alive. Large scale shadows fill the gallery walls and the viewer, who was initially towering over the fragile paper cities, is now surrounded by layers of giant shadow.

Following the first exhibition of this work at the Brandts Museum in Denmark, Three Cities was shown at:

Maison de la culture Notre Dame de Grace, Montréal, QC, September 9 - Nov13 2016,

Maison de la Culture Ahuntsic, Montréal, QC, December 5 2016 - January 10 2017,

Grunt Gallery, Vancouver, BC January 12 - March 10 2017

Photos by Stephanie Osmond

Video by Isabel Bondy