Did you ever leave the room?
rencontre avec l'artiste Vida Simon

3 décembre à 14 h
December 3, 2006 at 2 p.m.

“A woman is in a hotel room overlooking the city where she lives. She stays there for days devoted to the sole focus of drawing with no distractions. Sometimes when she hears a body enter the room she crawls under the desk and props up a drawing like a door. She is concealed. For a long time she stays there, still, quiet, her breathing huge in this confinement. A hand extends out and begins to blindly scratch with vine charcoal. (I don’t remember what I drew at that moment. In fact there are many parts that escape me, such as all the drawings within one drawing – erased, wiped away, disappeared in order for others to take shape). When she emerges she makes eye contact with them. This is important. She hands them each a piece of walnut.”

How to return?

For those who visited the hotel, and those who didn’t:

You are invited to take part in an informal discussion following Excavation Drawings, a performance-installation that took place at the Hôtel de la Montagne from October 10-15, 2006 and supported in part through Skol's As If All Were Well 2006/2007 programming. This will be an opportunity to revisit some of the themes, questions, responses, that the work brought about.

http://www.skol.ca/programmation/viva/fr/simon.html#content

La pratique installative et performative de l'artiste Vida Simon combine une diversité de formes dont le dessin, l'écriture, les objets produits à la main, le son et le mouvement. Bien que son travail soit de nature visuelle, elle cherche à créer des situations qui défont la représenation en y intégrant la participation du spectateur, en supprimant la visibilité, ou en révélant les processus à l’envers du décor. Le dessin vivant joue un rôle central dans sa démarche.

Vida Simon’s installation/performance work combines various forms including drawing, writing, hand-crafted objects, sound, and movement. While her work is visually-based, she tries to create situations that undo representation, through integrating the spectator’s participation, obscuring visibility, or revealing processes that are normally kept “behind the scenes.” Drawing live often plays a central role in her performances.

7044, rue Saint-Urbain
Montréal (Québc)