ARCHIVES >> Front Gallery: Isabelle Pauwels 37A Lisgar Street: A Few Situations

Back Gallery: Olia Mishchenko 2005 of the Top 3000

PeepHole: Matt Killen Borborygme

Front Gallery: Isabelle Pauwels 37A Lisgar Street: A Few Situations

Back Gallery: Olia Mishchenko 2005 of the Top 3000

PeepHole: Matt Killen Borborygme


Isabelle Pauwels. Unfurnished
Apartment for Rent (installation view),
cut out and reassembled drywall,
plexiglass, card paper, self-cover books,
dimensions variable, 2003

Olia Mishcenko. 2005 of the Top 3000
(detail), ink on paper, approx. dimensions
1 x 70 in., 2004

Matt Killen, Borborygme, 2004.
Photo by Joanna Foster.

July 01, 2004 - August 07, 2004
Opening Reception: JULY 1, 8PM

Front Gallery: Isabelle Pauwels, 37A Lisgar Street: A Few Situations
Opening night Artist Talk by Isabelle Pauwels, 7PM

Pauwels mixes language and architecture, linking them structurally as well as by method of usage. Language is an existing structure that we use to define and present personal intent, and on which we are dependent in order to define ourselves. Within this determined structure, we find the possibility for inscribing the self and the option of creating personal formations. But how dependent are we on this preexisting public domain to render our intentions or meanings recognizable? And inversely, how does that structure or space modify understanding?

For 37A Lisgar Street: A Few Situations, Pauwels's exhibition at Mercer Union, she sublets part of the Front Gallery. Adhering to Ontario building codes, Pauwels constructs a walled room, defining a personal space that structurally reflects the minimum provincial standards of what constitutes a livable structure. This newly declared space also ceremoniously bears its address and has its own mail slot. Pauwels is already sending mail to this newly established space, as part of legitimizing and deeming it a real address space. (excerpt from brochure essay by Jenifer Papararo)

Back Gallery: Olia Mishchenko, 2005 of the Top 3000

"If certain portions of equipment cannot be observed these sections of property are understood to be complex. A worker’s ignorance of one of these machines will not exempt them from the general act of work. (Work will not be confined to expertise or the specific execution of a goal, though a worker may not be “irresponsible,” or “unprofessional.”)" (excerpt from brochure text by Jesse Huisken)

2005 of the Top 3000, a continuous drawing, measuring approximately one inch in height and spanning over forty sheets of paper, depicts a hectic yet somewhat calm and composed narrative. Hundreds of ubiquitous bodies are engaged in what seems to be an endless act of making. Everyone is building something, erecting a wall, pushing, pulling or compiling building materials, gathering, planning and discussing what to make next. This place, this city or is it a village, is continuously about to be made, always under construction and as such imbued with potential.

PeepHole: Matt Killen, Borborygme

Matt Killen's Borborygme extends out of the PeepHole, infiltrating the gallery structurally and through a sound. The sculpture, a twist of pvc piping, is used to filter an already digitally filtered soundtrack, distancing the viewer from the sound source and the original recorded sound.