Showcasing the Citizen One Project at a Time
Written and Photos by Emily Chian
@aumi_and_emily
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is showcasing Althea Thauberger’s The State of the Situation—a personal and interactive gallery portraying citizens and their service to the State. The Vancouver-based experimental artist and filmmaker partners with communities across the world to represent people and their contributions to their communities in ingenious and theatrical ways.
The exposition features a working Canadian woman of the Post-War Era, men drafted for the German social service wing, and Canadian women soldiers in the Kandahar International Airport in Afghanistan. The three-venue exposition displays photographs and videos produced at home and internationally.
Thauberger snapshots the everyday lives of citizens in a creative and insightful process. For example, her portraits on Lorraine Monk, a Canadian woman who worked for the archives in the 60s, shows Thauberger performing and impersonating as Monk while browsing those photos; scattered across the portraits, descriptions inform that the portraits are of Canadian women and First Nations people.
Her film L’arbre est dans ses feuilles(2017) revisits photos taken between 1963-1966 to celebrate the centennial anniversary of Canada - the People Tree project, Call Them Canadians,and Ces Visage qui sont un pays.Lorraine Monk, the Executive Producer of the Still Image Division, directed all of these projects. What’s really cool is that Thauberger is still impersonating as Monk sitting on screen and in shadows. She also produced audio effects all by herself. Along with poems being read aloud by emerging Montreal writers, and comments by historian Andrea Kunard and Carol Payne, it is a creative feat commemorating Monk’s work and Canadian identity. In this 30-minute film, Thauberger shows a portrayal of the Post-War Era and a time where voices, especially women, were excluded in public opinion and expression.
Overseas, Thauberger worked on another short silent film, Zivildienst =/ Kunstprojekt (2006).Itfeatures an art project of eight Berlin-based men drafted for the then social service wing as an alternative to mandatory military service. Taking place in a scaffolding set in a 19th Century chapel, it tells a story about argument, betrayal, peer-pressure, and captivity. Through Thauberger’s theatrical improv sessions, the men play out a scenario where a group of people finds themselves in confinement. They then find themselves forming into two factions. The film is made up of shots and subtitles where the actors’ strike poses that follow a story; there is no conversation, but their body language and facial expression convey their message. The performance appears genuine and lifelike and it communicates the realities of war and conflict.
Althea Thauberger is internationally recognized and has had her work displayed all over the world. Her resume includes making films on the Capri apartments in Karachi, the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital in Prague, and the former Rickard Bencic factory in Rijeka, Croatia. The AGNS has previously showcased Thauberger’s work in 2004 when her film not afraid to die, became a part of the gallery’s permanent collection. This year, they feature her return with over a decade worth of artmaking.
Like a wizard, she shows close interaction with people from different languages, cultures, and ages together, ingeniously portraying them in photographs and social documentaries. Her ability to engage and collaborate with others is a splendid feat that is shaping and helping communities.
This is a well curated showcase of Althea Thauberger’s work that reveals the public lives of the citizen and their service to the State. Her way of creating art and helping the community is unique and meaningful. It shows how much she physically and emotionally engages herself in her work. I recommend it.
The State of the Situation is running now until April 5th, 2020.
1723 Hollis St
Halifax, NS B2J 1V9