THE COUNTER/SELF
2Fik, Helio Eudoro, Julius Poncelet Manapul, Meryl McMaster, Sasha Shevchenko, Adrian Stimson, Stacey Tyrell, Laakuluk Williamson Bathory and Jamie Griffiths
Exhibition
Art Museum University of Toronto, 2023
Photo documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid
To a certain extent, every self is performative – a cast of characters we can summon or shape to serve our needs as we face the world. We each contain potential multitudes that can express or withhold different sides of ourselves, adapt to specific contexts, determine or respond to a boundless range of human interactions, surmount or succumb to inner drives and outside pressures.
Navigating the complexities of selfhood, agency and representation, this exhibition brings together a group of artists who create and embody imaginative alter egos to examine, perform and subvert identity constructs and politics. Transforming their own appearance and staging complex photographic, video, and mixed media scenes, they disrupt and expose prejudices with regards to gender, race, ethnicity and nationhood.
Informed by personal and collective histories entwined within the artists’ life experiences, their counter/selves advance divergent perspectives that undercut deceptive national narratives, cultural legacies and social expectations. Audacious or enigmatic, probing power structures, asserting belonging, or obscuring presence, the counter/selves reclaim space, protect the vulnerable, and reveal the fallacies of dominant discourses, counteracting their harmful sways. In all their incarnations, they epitomize resilience, resistance and renewal.
Informed by personal and collective histories entwined within the artists’ life experiences, their counter/selves advance divergent perspectives that undercut deceptive national narratives, cultural legacies and social expectations. Audacious or enigmatic, probing power structures, asserting belonging, or obscuring presence, the counter/selves reclaim space, protect the vulnerable, and reveal the fallacies of dominant discourses, counteracting their harmful sways. In all their incarnations, they epitomize resilience, resistance and renewal.
