Bringing together works by Berlin-based artists Emma Waltraud Howes and Stine Marie Jacobsen, the distance between nowhere and now here addresses implications of distance and casualties of disembodiment. The exhibition reflects on manifestations of presence, negotiations of absence, and everything inbetween: between nowhere and now here, translation is fundamental.

If translation is a movement, a linear geometrical displacement that supposedly leaves its object unchanged, it is also a performance, an interpretation of an original work. Based on Samuel Beckett’s short play Not I (1973), Howes’ installation Stage Directions for a Mouth (2014) allies video, sculpture, and text. The choreographed reconfiguration of dislocated elements probes the agency of speech and performance. Jacobsen’s Mann beißt Hund (2015) is a remake of the Belgian film Man Bites Dog (1992) devoid of human presence. Presented along with a map of the shooting locations and a review of the original film, the piece foregrounds the articulations of structural, symbolic, and physical violence. the distance between nowhere and now here unfolds in absentia; the exhibition is here and the artists are nowhere, further accentuating the translation at play in the curatorial process.

Presented in collaboration with Images Festival. Produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto, supported in part by the Department of Visual Studies (UTM) through the Graduate Expansion Fund.

Free shuttle bus from Mercer Union departs 5:30pm, returns 8:30pm to Artscape Youngplace.

Curated by Charlotte Lalou Rousseau