par EMMA WALTRAUD HOWES

SAD-D_3

Aug 22-23-24-25

Time 3-5

twelve contributors

Each participant will be supplied with a ruler and a chalk kit of their own. There is limited space, so please sign up in advance of the performances, and arrive on time. Dress in comfortable clothing, preferably with a dark top and blue jeans. The performances will take place rain or shine.

Aug 22 VS3 – Rue Ste-Antoine, at Ste-Elizabeth

Meeting Point: Metro Place d’Armes: 2:45 pm

Today I think I am going to be alone. No one is waiting at the meeting point. I go to the location. There is a lot of foot traffic. I begin my task, concentrated solely on drawing my lines. After a short while, a woman rides up on her bicycle. She joins me. I describe the process and, without hesitation, she joins in. We demarcate our space. I ask if she would like to move in the space with me. She proceeds by investing herself in adjusting to the lines. She has invented her own game. We play.

Aug 23 PSN3 – Rue Ste-Laurent at Rue Arcade, under the viaduct

Meeting Point: Rue Saint-Laurent, at Rue Arcade: 2:45 pm

I am expecting to be alone. Sixteen people show up. We draw on our measuring sticks. People share the rulers. It takes a while for them to figure out how to proceed. We split into groups to draw our boundary. Once completed, we gather as a group in the corner of our space. We follow the line explaining the decisions we made in creating our lines. We climb over a fence, between, and around. We clap as bike riders pass us by. We crouch against the wall. We climb up and over the fence. We take a long walk. In many different manners, people respond to the constraint.

Aug 24 CS3 – Westmount Square. Ave Wood at Rue Ste-Catherine O. 

Meeting Point: Metro Atwater: 2:45 pm

Three people are with me. We spend a great deal of time looking at our rulers and deciding how to measure our bodies in relation to the space that surrounds us. We begin to draw our own measurements on the ground. I draw a line across the Mies Van der Rohe building, a small corner cut. A security guard promptly appears. If we want to come back at 8 am, to speak to officer 6785 located in room number 465, we are welcome to do so. He tells me his boss is not impressed, this is private property.

Aug 25 F3 – Rue La Riviere, at Rue d’Iberville 

Meeting Point: Metro Frontenac: 2:45 pm

Today there are three participants. We commence with our rulers and proceed to draw our lines. I am drawing on the wall. A security guard begins to yell at me from the distance. I approach her. She is perturbed. This wall is private property. I explain to her that it is only chalk and not permanent. She goes to find backup. We continue with our lines. A second guard comes to inquire about our actions. He tells us we can draw on the sidewalk, as it is public property, but the wall is out of bounds. 

SAD-D_1

Aug 8-9-10-11

Time 3-5

solo

Aug 8 VS1 – Rue Viger E. 

A man warns me that this is not the place to hang out, ‘this is a drug park’ he said. He wanted to ask me if I knew why they had taken away the water. He wanted to bathe. Another came to tell me that he liked to keep the park clean. He wanted to know if I was making a mess that he would then have to clean up. I looked up at one point to catch three men, each sitting in their own site, one drinking, the other smoking, and the third, sorting through his belongings. All three of them looked at me with a gaze of keen ambivalence. 

Aug 9 PSN1 – Rue Arcade 

Many people stop to talk to me. They want to know if I need some help, an ambulance, a drive to the hospital. The cars pass me on every side. The people inside pretend not to look. They quickly turn their heads when I look in their direction. As the cars pass I can hear people hooting and hollering. One man tells me to take it all off. On the opposite side of the road a man stops to get off of his bicycle. He watches intently for half an hour and then continues on.

Aug 10 CS1 – Rue Lambert-Closse

I delineate my space. The sun is resting on my skin. A woman comes to ask me what I am doing. She spotted me from the top floor of the children’s hospital across the road. She had been watching me with her daughter. Her daughter asked if I was dancing for her, so she came to find out. A dark cloud arrives overhead. It begins to pour. The sky is falling. I am drenched and flying as a woman passes by yelling ‘you go girl! you go!’ Her thumb is pointed upwards as the rain pours down her face. She is grinning ear to ear. The cars are honking, many people roll down their windows to ask what I am doing. They giggle as I pounce in puddles and twirl in the downpour. The rain ceases, my chalk marks are nearly washed away. I sit to rest. A man comes up to ask me if I was practicing martial arts. He swears he has seen my movements somewhere before.

Aug 11 F1 – Rue d’Iberville

Today it rains again. It is cold. I can see lightning in the distance. Very few people pass as I mark a small territory for myself. I remain hidden under the small alcove. I don’t want my marks to be washed away so I remain confined. I rest here. I can see a man watching from the safety of his home. He stays for the entire duration of the performance. He does not nod, or make a sound, but smokes. He takes long hauls on his cigarette. Another man walks by, garbage bags on his head to keep him dry; a long beard, a cart to carry his belongings, he turns to nod, a slight grin upon his face. 

Subtle Architectures Subtiles: Project History The initial inspiration for the project Subtle Architectures came from the presence of yellow lines in front of government buildings. These lines designate smoking areas and I enjoyed watching as people stood just inside the demarcated space, in order to bend to exhale. Their gestures touched on my interest in the construction of social and private space.  

Visualeyez

Latitude 53, Edmonton, Alberta (2007)

http://www.latitude53.org/

The first realization of the project took place during a ten-day residency at Visualeyez Festival, 2007. This event is hosted by Latitude 53, Edmonton, Alberta, offering artists an opportunity to test out new projects in an atmosphere conducive to research-creation. For this initial series the locations and times were not announced.  

3e imperial

Granby, Quebec (2008)

http://www.3e-imperial.org/

During a one-month residency at 3e imperial I was able to explore the process in greater depth. Sutbtle Architectues Subtiles: A Practice in Enabling Constraints, developed a formal quality, the yellow lines turned to white, my gestures becoming increasingly abstract. This was my daily work, constructing and shifting spaces along a meandering. Granby is a small town and I often worked alone. I began to wonder what it would be like to have other people accompany me in this process. I invited people to show me the spaces they frequented. They took me for walks around town and described the quality of these locations. It was this aspect of the process that prompted a restructuring of the project for the Dare-Dare series.

Crash!Boom!Bau!

Theatrehaus Jena, Jena, Germany (2009)

http://www.bauhauslab.org/index.php?id=79

Subtle Architekturen: The Transient Nature of Spatial Order, the German version of Subtle Architectures, took place during the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus. The evolution of this specific triad of performances was heavily influenced by my research into the history of the Bauhaus school, specifically the work of Oskar Schlemmer and the ‘Triadic Ballet’. For this version of the performances I used a DDR ruler and heavy chalk to demarcate my space, strict lines in contrast to my abstract gestures. In contrast to the two proceeding performance events the locations and times were publicly announced.

Dare-Dare

  Montreal, Quebec (2009)

http://www.dare-dare.org/

The current manifestation of the project Subtle Architectures Subtiles is described in the following posts. The numerous influences and inspirations that inform this process are too great to get into here. My hope is that I will have company this time around, and that this will spark a dialogue.

I wish to thank Dare-Dare and the numerous people and organizations that have supported the evolution of this process.