Concrete blocks are mysteriously carried through a snowy landscape by three figures using a wooden sleigh, their matching costumes suggesting some sort of common affiliation or corporate purpose. From the very beginning of Pascale Théorêt-Groulx’s film, various points of view are presented in order to expand our understanding of the building of a monumental dam on a river. Through the exhausting act of assembling a sculpture, analogous to the many hydro-electric dams that populate the province of Quebec, the artist asks us to reconsider this primary construction material. Like broken automatons, having fulfilled their function and now obsolete, the performers end their action covered in snow, incorporating the environment and buried by winter.
Pascale Théorêt-Groulx’s practice, spanning video, performance and installation, investigates the body’s relationship to its physical, social and psychic environment. She examines the uncertainty and unpredictability of the world around us and the uncontrollable human need to master it. Originally from Gatineau, Théorêt-Groulx lives and works in Montreal..
