Ascension, 2011

Isabelle Hayeur - Montreal, Canada

Video Installation

Using video and sound, Ascension is an experience of a mise en abyme, an exploration of infinity, inside the Metropolitan United Church. Hayeur is known for work that responds adequately to a site and engages sensory perceptions in space. This work seeks to explore the body's experience and the sensory effects of sacred architecture. A video projection onto a large vertical screen creates the impression that the nave of the church extends endlessly along a winding path. Variations of the video are presented in sequence. A sound environment based on ambient noise and electronic music, composed by Nicolas Bernier, sets a different atmosphere for each sequence. The installation draws attention to the architecture of the church and provides visual and auditory experience of spatiality. The images and soundscape are a response to the qualitative dimensions of the space and echoes the architecture of the church. Visitors are immersed in an experience of transcendent acoustic and visual journey.

Isabelle Hayeur is known for her photomontages, videos and site-specific installations. Recent public interventions include Fire with Fire (2010), commissioned by The Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Since the early 2000s, she has been producing site-specific works that play with reality, multimedia environments that are designed to blend within their host environments or prolong the architectural space they occupy in an illusory way.

Suitable for all ages

In association with Marie-Hélène Parant, Nicolas Bernier and Jean-François Gauthier