centre d'artistes.artist run centre
Performance: October 16 at 1pm
Meeting point: 12:45 at articule
Artist Talk
WRONG PLACES / SPACES / SITES
Thursday, October 21 at 11:00am-12:30pm
Concordia University
EV Building EV 1.605 (1515 De Maisonneuve Blvd W.)
Contact: ajim@alcor.concordia.ca
A pivotal moment in 20th century Canadian history is the October Crisis of 1970. The kidnappings of James Cross and Pierre Laporte by the Front de Libération du Québec were swiftly met by Pierre Trudeau's invoking of the War Measures Act - nation wide, civil liberties were suspended while Canadian Forces patrolled the streets of Montréal. The events of 1970 helped fuel the already-swelling Quebec sovereignty movement for years to come. Forty years later, how do we look back? How do we read these events? What has changed? What has stayed the same?
A Measure of War is a site-specific public performance that is a part of David Khang's ongoing Wrong Places Series. In this series, seemingly disconnected historical events and public speeches are juxtaposed and 'remixed' - both culturally and linguistically, triggering our collective amnesia into remembering things as they never were. How do we comprehend Trudeau's speech on October 16, 1970, or the FLQ Manifesto, when read not in English or French - the official languages of a bilingual Canada - but in a Third language? What is our response to the dissonance produced by overlapping layers of conflicted histories, including our ambivalent history of multiculturalism?
On October 16, 2010, the public is invited to participate in this event, by riding their bicycles alongside Khang's pedal-powered mini-tank to City Hall, making stops for photo-ops at landmarks along the way. While wearing military fatigues, Khang will recite speeches in Korean, his mother tongue, spliced together from the notable public enunciations from October 1970.
David Khang is a visual and performance artist who uses language as a trope to consider constructions and performativity of subjects within postcolonial histories and contemporary culture. Khang mimes historical events, and remixes/ re-imagines their poetic and political potentials. After studies in psychology, dentistry, and theology, Khang received his BFA from Emily Carr Institute (2000) and MFA with Emphasis in Critical Theory from U.C. Irvine (2004). Khang has exhibited and performed nationally and internationally. He lives in Vancouver where he teaches sessionally at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. (www.davidkhang.com)