At the FOFA Gallery: a man, a woman and a glass finger
Julie Favreau, MFA 12, has spent weeks in a serious rush.
From April 7 to May 16, the FOFA Gallery is displaying her film at an exhibition entitled an entire day an entire month. In the time leading up to its opening, the Concordia grad worked tirelessly to ensure that everything about it was just so.
“I kept trying new materials and rearranging the space,” Favreau says. “It’s natural for an exhibition to evolve with an artist’s ideas.”
an entire day an entire month explores how one story can generate another. The exhibition features a short film that Favreau produced; it was inspired by the novel Entre Ciel et Terre (Gallimard, 2010), the French translation of Icelandic author Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s Himnaríki og helvíti (Bjartur, 2007).
“It’s the story of a boy who loses a friend during a fishing expedition,” Favreau says. “The novel focuses on the stories within a community, along with a silent but poignant communication with nature.”
The video — which was informed by the book’s sparse yet powerful language and universally resonant tale — depicts a man and woman interacting with a lifelike glass finger that Favreau herself sculpted.
With the help of minimalist, all-white materials, the artist was able to reinterpret the relationship between the couple and their surroundings.
“I place them and the object within a modernist home and natural settings,” she says. “By using completely different elements to retell one story, you create a new one,” she says.
Favreau’s reinvention doesn’t end there. When the FOFA is closed to visitors, she will invite dancers to join her within her installation, the materials from which, she hopes, will inspire her to choreograph another retelling that will become its own story.
“It’s another way to express the relationship between object and movement, which is my primary focus,” she says.
‘You need time to make art’
In 2012, Favreau received the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art, valued at $55,000. The funds have allowed her to immerse herself in her work over the past two years.
“More than anything, you need time to make art,” she says. “I was able to read extensively, visit galleries, watch dance performances, participate in studio residencies, improve my filmmaking and, of course, spend hours in studio experimenting with new types of object creation.”
As a result, Favreau’s artistic reach has grown.
“I’ve been told my film scenes are more precise because I’m now more experienced in making objects, choreographing movements and expressing that relationship in film,” she says.
Above all, though, Favreau credits the fellowship with helping her make the leap from talented art student to professional artist.
“The travelling I’ve been able to do and the long conversations I’ve been able to have with curators have really helped me establish my art career,” she says.
As the 2012 Bronfman Fellow, Favreau has also been able to teach in Concordia’s Department of Studio Arts — where she studied — for the first time.
“The Bronfman fellowship and Concordia have given me the chance to take this first step in sharing knowledge and ideas,” she says. “I’m so grateful for this.”
Julie Favreau’s show an entire day an entire month is on display until May 16 at the FOFA Gallery in the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV Building, 1515 Ste. Catherine St. W.) on the Sir George Williams Campus. A finissage and catalogue launch will take place on May 8 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Learn more about an entire day an entire month.