Through this project I aspire to portray places of unexpected encounters and discoveries where tension and boredom cohabit: waiting rooms. I investigate their potential to unfold in places of both the everyday and the extraordinary. From doctor's offices to airports, unmarked waiting lines and geographical terrains, I document and examine these spaces—real and/or restaged—as sets for fictional stories inspired by actual events. How do we wait, and how the spaces we are waiting in alter the experience?
The project has taken place and continue to take place in various settings and cultures around the world. Not in an attempt to draw a comparative study or produce a documentary about waiting but rather in an attempt to weave a poetic narrative that illustrates these everyday shared experiences. The production processes are a combination of work on site and reconstructed environment and objects in the studio, involving the creation of ‘fake’ environments inspired by ‘real’ waiting situations. I base my research and play with four typical waiting room elements: 1) seating arrangements, 2) screens (TVs, mobile devices), 3) magazines and or posters to read, and 4) green plants and framed pictures depicting landscapes/wilderness.
I have started the production of the project in 2016 through three art residencies: a two-month stay at La Cité internationale des Arts in Paris (France), another two-month stay at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo (Japan), and a four-day stay at Lastation in Gagliano de Capo, the headquarter of the art association Ramdom located above the waiting room of the last train station of the line going to the South East region of Italy.
During these residencies, I set up fictional waiting rooms in my temporary studios and invited people to use them and share with me a waiting story. Some of the stories I recorded relate the waiting to cross a border daily, to see a lover met on the internet, to see a loved one who just died in their hospital’s bed, to see a family member for the first time, the waiting for ideas to manifest, for a response to come. There are impactful waiting moments that can last years and small scale waiting moments that only last seconds. In a culture of instant gratification, the moments of suspension–sometimes contemplative, sometimes filled with frustration–and the spaces carefully designed or makeshift for these collective and intimate states are ever-changing. This aspect is fascinating to me.
In 2017, I was awarded a Project Grant to Visual Artists from the Canada Council for the Arts to develop the second stage of the project. Part of this research has been presented solo exhibitions at CAMAC Art Center in Marnay-sur-Seine in France in 2017 [the center has since then unfortunately closed its doors] and at VU (Quebec City, Canada) in 2018. Iterations of the project were also included in the exhibition LAND FORM at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY in 2106, a three-person exhibition titled Delayed at Big Orbit, CEPA Gallery Contemporary Photography & Visual Arts Center’s satellite exhibition space in Buffalo (NY). During the fall 2017, I continued to develop the project as a fellow at the Humanities Center at the University of Rochester.
This project is ongoing and has many ramifications:
Scrolling
Last Stops
This must be the place
When Chair Swim
Regarder les feuilles tomber
Nonewspaper
Chair arrangements
Fictions
Aux oiseaux