Bodies carry and transmit traces of memories, sites, and stories—both as acts of care and as burdens to bear.
Bodies Carrying: Traces & Stories is a twofold conversation taking the form of a group exhibition and a program consisting of workshops, performances, and talks. This is an experiment in transforming the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling into a dialogue space that brings together artists and researchers who engage with or reflect on oral history in their work, from the curatorial process to the mise en œuvre.
The exhibition and program explore the traces we carry—the traces of what was willingly or unwillingly passed on, those that were inflicted, and the lingering ghosts of what was left behind.
These imprints can be things we hold onto or want to make more visible, carried through acts of care, (re)connection, and resistance. Yet, these traces also represent the weight of what bodies have borne and still bear. Bodies Carrying: Traces & Stories asks: How do we hold space for both the tenderness and heaviness of what it means to carry?
Exhibition Location
COHDS, 10th Floor – LB-1042; 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W.
COHDS/ALLAB is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.
Exhibition Hours
May 1 – May 16
Open daily | 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Dates
May 5 – May 8
Please register for individual events.
Vernissage
April 30, 5 à 7, Sunroom (LB-1019)
With durational performance “I Insist” by Sol Worsnip
Program
May 5, 10h-13h
Corps, émotions et recherches: une exploration par cartographie corporelle – Atelier
May 6, 12h-14h
Attuning to Spectralities: Senses, Whispers, and Other Connective Membranes – Workshop
May 6, 15h-16h30
كان حتى ما كان (Once Upon a Place): What Remains of the Halqa? Performing Memory and Absence – Lecture Performance
May 7, 10h-13h
The Metabolism of Silence – Workshop
May 7, 16h-17h30
Intimate Listening- Immersive Theatre
May 8, 14h-15h
Walking Interludes – Reading and dialogue
May 8, 16h-18h
Identity, Care, Labour, and Matrilineal Stories – Performance and Artist Talks
REGISTRATION
Registration forms are linked on each event page.
Curated/facilitated by: Annie Thao Vy Nguyen
Annie Thao Vy Nguyen (they/she) is a Master’s student in Geography and Urban Studies at Concordia University, exploring queer futurity and political imagination through dialogic processes. Their thesis uses oral history to trace the evolution of queer Asian activism in Montreal across generations, using Chinatown as a case study. Annie holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Université de Montréal, with a thesis at the Technical University of Munich on inquiry-based exhibition pedagogy, where they co-developed and co-taught a course on pedagogy in architecture exhibitions. Trained and soon-to-be certified in Philocreation dialogue facilitation, Annie used these tools to facilitate this exhibition and program through a curatorial dialogue with all contributors.
