Programming

One day she opened a drawer in her dresser and showed me poems and gifts that had an old-fashioned smell. Her childhood sweetheart, left behind in Ireland years before, had never forgotten her. On each of her birthdays, he would write poems for her and send them to her with a silk scarf or a piece of jewelry. These objects, never worn, hidden in a jumble in a drawer, did not fit the image of the mother I knew. This practical mother, who had cried the day I told her I was giving up calculus for art. "You are burning your bridges. One must always keep more than one door open!"

Janice Rahn's work is based on creating fictional content out of the very real sense of belonging to a physical and geographical place, to a social and cultural community. For the past three years, the artist has been investigating her own origins, cataloguing her family heritage, opening the drawer of memories and sensations of her personal history. With the help of fragments of real and invented stories, she sets up in her work the foundations of a narrative that serves and pursues the project of drawing a portrait of herself and her family members.

She Cast Herself Adrift is an installation that includes photography, sculpture, texts written by the artist, and a set of artifacts using various techniques such as photo-engraving, photo-serigraphy and engraving. A table was the central piece, on which was inscribed the key text of the work. The narrative approach gravitated around the trajectories separated in a life. It is these "aborted lives" that the artist told and to lead this project of pure fiction, she solicited the participation of the spectator. She put at his disposal cards on the back of which appeared fragments of stories. The public could assemble and complete these snippets of lives, these little stories that could have happened. The publication that accompanies this exhibition is produced by the artist.

Janice Rahn holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from Concordia University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Art Education. She has exhibited in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Italy and Japan.