Session 21
Edith Brunette
On March 28, 2019 at 7 pm
Limited seats. Spectators will be let in on a first come first served basis.
Bertolt Brecht theorized and practiced a theatre wherein the political was activated through distance. Songs, choreographies and acting distanced from the actors, as well as abrupt lighting changes, were ways to insert the real into fiction, in hopes that political action would then take place as a result of gained awareness.
Around him and after him, distance became a political issue that was taken and thrown about in every which way: the contemporary world suffers diversely from an excess of separation (Henri Lefèbvre), from a lack of separation (Richard Sennett) or of it’s outright abolition (Fredric Jameson). Debord and the Situationists wanted to abolish it, but to do so also deployed an arsenal of eruptions and ruptures, which today we see utilized in advertising. Whereas musical comedies are over sweetened, Brecht’s procedures sought the (slightly) acidic.
In the middle of all this, the entrepreneur artist digs their way, somewhere between adhering to the world and the desire to change it, between songs of hope and fugues.
Sketches for an entrepreneurial musical comedy.
Edith Brunette conjugates artistic practice and theoretical research concerning active discourses in the field of art and what is revealed about the power and politics at play in society. Her projects have explored video surveillance (Caméraroman, 2011), freedom of speech in periods of social crises (Consensus, 2012-14), the political agency of artists (Faut-il se couper la langue?, 2013; Cuts Make the Country Better, 2015, in collaboration with François Lemieux), community practices (Contre-monument à 100 millions de brins d’herbe, 2015), and the artist as a circulated commodity (Sea Lanes, 2018-19, with François Lemieux). She has exhibited and presented her research in various locations in Canada (Galerie de l’UQAM, Skol, articule and DARE-DARE, Montreal; Le Lieu and La Chambre blanche, Quebec City; AXENÉO7, Gatineau; Cineworks/Western Front, Vancouver) and abroad (art3, Valence, France; Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio, Japon), and regularly publishes texts in various art publications, including esse arts + opinions, Inter and Liberté. She is a cofounder and co-organizer of Journée sans culture, a discussion platform for art workers. She is presently doing a doctorate in political studies at the University of Ottawa.
Dazibao thanks the artist for her generous collaboration as well as its advisory programming committee for its support.
Dazibao receives financial support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Ville de Montréal.