Programming

Karen Spencer created two performances.

1) Over the course of a month, she waited for visitors, sitting on a floor covered with bread in a tiny space in a rooming house in the Saint-Henri neighborhood. She charred slices and ground them with her hands, deconstructing a daily task.

2) In a one-hour performance at DARE-DARE, her body was a catalyst for a sustained emotional charge that contrasted with the intimacy and quietude of the room. For both actions, the artist confronted the visitor with his or her own expectations by exploring the power relations, time, space and audience specific to each of these contexts. The position of the viewer in the work is an important and current topic that Karen Spencer addresses using the strategy of duality: on the one hand, a personalized encounter around a very simple action in the room and on the other hand, the inscription of her personal and intimate life in the more formal context of the gallery.