Stéphane Dionne
in Carleton-sur-Mer

EXHIBIT

CABIN TRUNK

Municipal beach | Carleton-sur-Mer
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Stéphane Dionne, Montreal, Québec | stephanedionne.blogspot.fr

The holder of a master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts from Université du Québec à Montréal, Stéphane Dionne lives and works in Montreal.

His video and photographic work has been presented as part of various Québec artistic events. Among other settings, his work has been seen at Galerie Simon Blais, at Maison de la culture du Plateau-Mont-Royal and at Place des Arts in the context of FIFA (International Festival of Films on Art). His work has also been on display in the exhibition Artistique avenue, an EXMURO public-art project in Québec City. He received the emerging-artist grant from the Sylvie and Simon Blais Foundation to mark the end of his master’s studies, as well as a grant from SODEC (the Québec government agency devoted to the support and promotion of Québec culture). Moreover, Stéphane Dionne has acquired extensive experience in different cultural-mediation projects, notably with the contemporary-art exhibition center Plein sud and the cultural organizations Diasol and Exeko.

“I create videographic works whose foundations derive from the relationship of individuals with themselves, the other, and their living environment. I address that theme visually, starting from a plastic and esthetic reflection based on an exploration of movement and of time. I transpose into images what might emerge from that relationship, rather than claiming to express it objectively. Thus, the subject captured in video is interpreted and translated in a subjective way. Through fiction, I construct a critical look at what motivates individuals to be in contact with the other and at what keeps them away from the other.

“That takes the form of videographic tableaux: static shots incorporating movement. I work on the color, the assembly, the fragmentation and the manipulation of images, within which I cut out individuals. Through my montage work, my extras find themselves isolated, extracted from their reality and transposed to a composite world of several individuals. This process has the effect of revealing a space-time that strikes them as appropriate, while they go about their lives in ignorance of the realities of others.”

Stéphane Dionne

EXHIBIT AT RENCONTRES

CABIN TRUNK

“The video installation Cabin Trunk consists of a video projection divided into quadrilaterals and presented in a container. This videographic tableau allows the viewer to see a combination of video sequences placed side by side but independent in terms both of content and how they unfold. Each sequence features different bird’s-eye views of people in action, filmed individually, in a space painted black. Their functionality is reduced to a minimum. Each one, in this context uprooted from everyday life, behaves in his or her own fashion and within his or her own boundaries. Constrained by the restricted space, the neutrality and the time allocated to acting spontaneously in it, the volunteers in the project are left to themselves and must deal with the solitude, even though they know they are being observed. This backdrop leads to a singular collection of nondescript action scenes, ordinary, even unconscious gestures, and obsessiveness that betrays certain discomfort. These innocuous movements become captivating once they take their place in the work’s space-time cutouts. The sequences of these imposed moments are selected and form precise instants, presented in a loop in such a way that they’re choreographed in the different sections of a videographic quilt. The non-uniformity of the lighting in each of the sequences makes apparent the limits of the space occupied by the participants, which heightens the impression that they’re walled in and subjected to artificial living conditions, like laboratory subjects. I attempt to create a typology, a random sample, but one that nonetheless reveals the individual-environment interrelationship. The container where these singular moments take shape inspires a consideration of the issues of commodification, displacement and search for territory that confront people of the present day.

“The spectator is invited to get up on a platform to see the interior of the container in which the actions of the protagonists are presented. When this ‘microsociety’ is observed, the particularities of each person emerge, along with behavioral similarities. The angle from which the participants were filmed when matched with that of the projection that makes up the installation gives observers a perspective and a scale that lead them to look carefully and searchingly at a given subject, contained in a box. The absence of a soundtrack also accentuates the impact of looking and prevents the audience from being distracted by any element other than the one being displayed. In that way they can concentrate on each of the sections in the work in an almost meditative relationship. What I’m present is both an attentive observation of the masses and a staging that isolates the relationship maintained by human beings with their immediate environment and its impact on their behavior.”

Stéphane Dionne