These artists make videos that are heartfelt, funny and totally Canadian. Why are they never shown together?

It all started with an underground video.

A long time ago, somewhere between Y2K and the early days of YouTube, Chloe Lum and Yannick Desranleau lived in Montreal. The duo has been active in the city’s indie scene for a long time. They co-founded the noise rock band AIDS Wolf and for years ran Séripop, a graphic design company that created posters for countless local acts, including their own. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, while making the rounds at a local zine fair, Lum and Desranleau got their hands on a DVD by artist and animator Amy Lockhart.

The video was as DIY as it gets: a surreal suburban adventure starring a thrift store drag queen with a Fubar Hairstyle, Miss Edmonton Teenburger 1983.

“Every single person who was interested in weird art, I turned on the TV and the DVD and said, ‘No, you have to see these short films,'” Lum recalls of pre-Facebook youth customs. “I shared this video with friends and colleagues for years – years before artists could host videos on their own websites – and it really felt like imparting secret ancient knowledge,” she laughs.

Like fans of any cult film or meme, the artists exchanged Miss Edmonton Teenburger quotes with their friends and laughed at references to ketchup chips. But this wasn’t a found footage gem, this was art – art of a kind that didn’t get much attention in the galleries they knew.

“In the beginning you would go to a lot of artist-run centers and everything was very, very serious. You couldn’t be funny or campy,” says Lum. It’s not that Canadian artists haven’t been funny for a long time; She and Desranleau grew up admiring him General idea. But she says: “It feels that way [Lockhart] somehow helped create a space for this kind of work.

Earlier this fall, Lum and Desranleau unveiled a gallery exhibition focused on this “kind of work” — prop-filled, theatrical and sometimes bizarrely funny performance art. His title? We did this mostly at home using things we already had in our apartment: prop performance and camp in contemporary Canadian video art.

The exhibition, on display in Edmonton at the University of Alberta’s FAB Gallery, brings together works by some of the country’s most compelling artists—including finalists for the Sobey Art Award and the Turner Prize—serious talents whose work generally isn’t afraid to be silly to be.

Save an installation by Beth Frey (the Canadian artist responsible for the AI ​​abominations of mesmerizing Instagram images). Sentient Muppet Factory), the exhibition is entirely focused on video. It’s a work with a homespun and often absurdly comic sensibility, where the inanimate “stuff” on screen is just as expressive as the live performers.

The total running time of the show is approximately two and a half hours, but the curators have divided the program into four hours de facto Screening rooms. Visitors can sit and watch short compilations of the selected works: videos grouped by “aesthetic similarity,” says Desranleau. The unicorns, wizards and evil princesses of Miss Edmonton Teenburger 1983 in: You are eternal screen next to it Maya Ben David‘s fandom review Anthro plane: Air Canada Gal And Bridget Moser‘S A plant grows where no plant should grow.

The latter was created during the 2020 lockdown and gave the exhibition its title. It’s a line from the video’s end credits – a phrase the curators liked because it captures a sense of homegrown intimacy common to all the works. Plus, Desranleau adds, “It’s super funny.”

Moser herself was pleasantly surprised to hear that her video had inspired the show’s name. When she first learned of Lum and Desranleau’s plans for the exhibition—and saw the group of artists they were assembling—she knew she would fit right in. “I identify strongly with so many artists in the exhibition, and with many of them. “I had ideas that I’m very jealous of,” she says.

What do they all have in common? It’s hard to pinpoint, Moser says, but she suspects it might have something to do with a similar attitude and approach to making art.

These artists are all funny, she says, but they don’t work like comedians, where a laugh means mission accomplished. Instead, she says, “It’s a balance between a sense of humor – a comedic sensibility – and then also real sincerity in what you’re trying to communicate. …And maybe it’s that balance of sincerity and comedy that I’m very passionate about.”Home in.”

Moser recognizes the double quality in the videos Seamus Gallagherwhose piece 2019, I think of you, think of meis also on view in the exhibition – and it is also present in the art practice of Lum and Desranleau.

Over the last decade, the duo has increasingly focused on performances, often captured on video—works in which they employ a cast of performers and sculptural props. “That kind of campy element,” says Desranleau, “is an aesthetic that we’re really interested in and familiar with. For example, some of our latest videos become operas or musicals.”

The duo have exhibited at the Esker Foundation in Calgary, the Confederation Center Art Gallery in Charlottetown and the MAC in Montreal, but according to Lum, they have never appeared in an exhibition dedicated exclusively to Canadian artists working in the same style as them. This was an important motivation for curating the exhibition at the FAB Gallery. “We wanted to create a presence for the type of work we are interested in – like the work we do – by shining a spotlight on our colleagues and friends,” says Lum.

“I think we started talking about it seven years ago,” she says, but the duo’s recent move to Edmonton, where they now teach at the University of Alberta, gave them the chance to finally make it happen. When the opportunity to bring their own art to the FAB Gallery arose, the duo decided to curate a group exhibition instead – and they plan to present an expanded version of the exhibition in the future.

Moser agrees with Lum and Desranleau: You don’t normally see that many, if any, Canadian artists showing video art together. And it’s even more unusual to work with so many artists who have the same sense of humor and fun. “I feel like it’s usually treated more like a niche. Here is the funny artist – and then here are the more serious artists who are represented in our group exhibition,” says Moser. Looking at the list of exhibiting artists, Moser says she can’t help but connect the dots between like-minded people. She remembers writing about Lum and Desranleau as a student; She worked with Gallagher while conducting a residency at the Banff Center. “There’s a kind of generational continuity,” she says.

“I think it’s really important to bring the work together to understand the broader constellation that everything is part of,” Moser says. “There’s a dialogue going on between all of these different practices, but it usually feels like they’re happening individually everywhere.”

We did this mostly at home using things we already had in our apartment: prop performance and camp in contemporary Canadian video art. Curated by Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau. With works by Maya Ben David, Mike Bourschied, Edith Brunette François Lemieux, Océane Buxton & Salesforce Child, Marissa Sean Cruz, Rah Eleh, Erica Eyres, Beth Frey, Séamus Gallagher, Geneviève Matthieu, Lenore Claire Herrem, Marisa Hoicka, Mathieu Lacroix, Amy Lockhart, Elizabeth Milton, Bridget Moser, Sin Wai Kin. Until November 2nd at the FAB Gallery, University of Alberta, Edmonton. www.ualberta.ca