Annie Martin Janet Youngdahl adoration

Date(s): Nov 10 to Dec 15 2018

Exhibition

R. Leland, 2017

With the generous, ongoing collaboration of soprano Janet Youngdahl

“Nothing but an open mouth, or perhaps an eye, an ear: nothing but an open body. Bodies are adorations in all their openings.”

(Jean-Luc Nancy, Adoration: the Deconstruction of Christianity II)

adoration is an installation taking inspiration from the writing of Jean-Luc Nancy, and the sacred music of late medieval composer, writer and mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Where does sacred experience (re)emerge in a secular, materialist world? Does not the impulse to experience a gap in the texture of reality, a beyond or within, always migrate to another object, another location or non-place? Imagining the space of the gallery infused with and opened by sound, I have distilled the modal tones of one chant by von Bingen and used this palette to invoke an extended moment of presence. What began as minimal panels of reflective colour gave way to visions evoked by von Bingen’s life and musical texts transposed across nine centuries and situated an ocean away.

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Further readings:

exhibition essay (pdf)

R. Leland, 2017

Annie Martin‘s practice traverses sound, installation, painting, drawing, textile and performance. Her work has been exhibited widely in Canada, and internationally. Martin received her MFA from Concordia University in 1994. She lives and works in Lethbridge, Alberta, in the traditional territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy.

Janet Youngdahl is active as a soprano, academic and choral conductor. She is the director of Sweet Breath Women’s Ensemble, and has toured extensively with Sequentia ensemble for medieval music, appearing with them as a soloist on seven albums of early music including the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen on the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/BMG label. She has recorded discs for Toccata Classics, BIS, Phillips, RCA and has a new recording coming out this year on Centaur Records featuring works by Barbara Strozzi.