The Distance Between You and Me

Isabelle Pauwels

srebick — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:07:21 +0000

Isabelle Pauwels is a Vancouver-based artist whose video installations address the complexities of inhabiting place, the mechanics of its representation within time-based media and the fundamental structures of narrative. This installation comprises two single-channel videos, June 30, 2009, and W.E.S.T.E.R.N., 2010, together with a small group of digital prints—scanned images of historical photographs taken or collected by Pauwels’ grandfather, who worked as a government inspector during the time leading up to the declaration of independence for the Republic of Congo on June 30, 1960. Using video, found film and photographs, she combines images taken in and around her family home in suburban Vancouver with home movies made by her grandfather during his family’s time in the Belgian Congo.

For Pauwels, narrative is a problem. She is wary of the images and stories captured by her grandfather: photographs of black men, women and children, an underclass who labour and serve and an overclass of white people who administer and enjoy the products of that labour. In this work, Pauwels forces narrative to be broken apart and re-presented. The terms of its argument are made visible, and the actors and narrator exposed. Faced with this broken state, we begin to see location for what it is: a narrative that binds us—through medium, memory, familial relations and social and political history—to a temporal and geographic place.

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The Distance Between You and Me,2009

srebick — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:12:57 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me, 2009
4 projector 16mm film installation
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris
Photo: Joshua White

The Distance Between You and Me 1, 2008

srebick — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:07:31 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 1, 2008
Lambda print
37.0 x 30.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 5,2008

srebick — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:13:02 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 5, 2008
Lambda print
50.3 x 62.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 8, 2008

srebick — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:15:52 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 8, 2008
Lambda print
42.0 x 35.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 10, 2008

srebick — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 04:34:29 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 10, 2008
Lambda print
29.0 x 42.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 11, 2008

srebick — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:36:32 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 11, 2008
Lambda print
52.3 x 72.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 12, 2008

srebick — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 04:56:14 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 12, 2008
Lambda print
27.6 x 37.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 13, 2008

srebick — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 04:57:51 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 13, 2008
Lambda print
42.0 x 34.2 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris

The Distance Between You and Me 15, 2008

srebick — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:03:34 +0000

Gonzalo Lebrija
The Distance Between You and Me 15, 2008
Lambda print
24.0 x 32.0 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris