remember when we were together forever at Cassandra Cassandra
by:
Lauren Lavery
Published in May, 2020 in the early days of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Issue 3 of Cornelia was virtual only.
remember when we were together forever, 2020. Installation documentation altered by Jillian Kay Ross. Courtesy of Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto.
There’s a passage in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Feathertop” in which the protagonist, a scarecrow named Feathertop, finds himself afflicted with existential torment. He is made from a broomstick, bits of wood, a meal bag stuffed with straw, and, for a head, the shriveled remains of an old pumpkin all brought to life through the magic pipe of the witch Mother Rigby. While wooing the daughter of the town’s prominent judge in the guise of a stately nobleman, the scarecrow catches his own reflection in a looking glass and sees himself for the “wretched simulacrum” that he is. Horrified, he returns to the witch and crumples to the floor in “a medley of straw and tattered garments,” wishing to exist no longer. “And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?” Mother Rigby sighs.[1]
Organized by Roberta Pelan at Cassandra Cassandra in Toronto, remember when we were together forever brought together four artists in an exhibition that expressed something of the profound feeling of a very close and personal loss. Artists Justine Lugli, Parker Kay, Colin Miner, and Jillian Kay Ross worked within different mediums in an attempt to convey a singular sense of affectual resonance with an understanding of the true self through concealment, solitude, fantasy, comedy, and straw.
remember when we were together forever, 2020. Installation documentation altered by Jillian Kay Ross. Courtesy of Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto.
The exhibition’s unconventional entrance requirements—you were asked to leave your phone at the door, which in turn was blocked by sepia-tinted vinyl strip curtains—were a hint at the compelling experience to come. Only one viewer was allowed into the gallery at a time, no matter how many others were waiting outside, ensuring a consistently solitary and meditative viewing experience. The floor of the small, one-room gallery was covered entirely in straw, and the pungent odor overwhelmed the sinuses. The golden yellow straw gave off a subtle heat when touched and a satisfying brushing sound when pressed under foot. Light shone through decorative swirls of white paint on the windows, heating and lighting the room in an almost ethereal gesture. Two large bales of straw acted as makeshift plinths, one raising Justine Lugli’s black music stand holding a long, haphazardly taped–together piece of sheet music while the other propped up a flatscreen TV displaying Untitled (Leaf) (2017) by Colin Miner. The vivid green of Miner’s video contrasted intensely with the golden hue of the straw; at first glance, the tiny, delicate twitches and whirls of the foregrounded leaf hanging from an invisible web are undetectable, and it’s impossible to tell if the video has a beginning or end. The gentle sounds of the forest melt into the constructed environment: nostrils breathe in the heavy scent of straw, warm rays heat up your cheek, eyes stare into the green forest-y void—the moment transports the viewer into another place, one that’s impossible to name with any certainty even though all of the elements are familiar.
Alone in the gallery, there was an odd feeling of relief in no longer being able to fulfill the urge to document the experience with my phone: the capacity of my memory to hold on to the moment had to be sufficient. This is an uncommon practice in our contemporary age of ultimate digitization (have you really experienced it if you didn’t document it?!), and the challenge to remain present in your body while staying focused on the work can seem overwhelming. And yet, in spite of all of this concern, the straw’s grounding presence proved to be the real equalizer—as well as the one element that was consistently seen, even within the edited documentation.
remember when we were together forever, 2020. Installation documentation altered by Jillian Kay Ross. Courtesy of Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto.
Artist Jillian Kay Ross altered the exhibition’s documentation, blurring out, covering up, collaging, and otherwise obscuring certain objects to prevent a full vantage of the scene in the photos of the installation. In a way, her edits add to the unreliability of memory but also result in images that lend themselves to new interpretations that might not have been apparent otherwise. For example, in one image, red circles magnify a spot in the straw, revealing a “hidden” spider within the area. In another, a found infographic in the corner asks, “Do you know the difference between Straw & Hay?” We are informed that straw is mainly used as bedding for livestock or insulation; it seems fitting, then, that the morality tale of “Feathertop” links the material to the padding of one’s insides. Alone in the gallery, it is hard to ignore the existence of many corporeal presences—my own, the ones waiting outside the gallery, and the many bodies that could be stuffed with the straw currently covering the floor. A fantasy of all the scarecrows that could be made with the straw in the gallery turns this moment of solitary, contemplative reflection into something hilariously bathetic.
The concept of bathos refers to a moment that is intended to be earnestly serious but instead falls into absurdity for the viewer (or in my case, thinker). Bathetic humor defines much of the standup of late comedian Brody Stevens. Arguably, one of the most interesting elements of his work was his ability to break the fourth wall with his audiences. “Stay with me!” is a phrase that can be heard quite often throughout Stevens’s sets, and as an audience member you are constantly implicated in your passivity by these not so gentle nudges, reminded that every chuckle has an effect and that your participation in laughing at his jokes contributes to the overall sense of affect. Whether you want to participate or not, your presence alone implicates you.
Artist Parker Kay examines the moment he first learned about Stevens’s death last February in a small, hand-bound book titled as you can see, most of my pictures are lies by mistake (2020). The comedian’s affectual style of humor straddled a line between “fantasy and futility,” Kay writes; the moments in-between—those calling out the insecurities and implications of being a viewer—were the points of the greatest power. Throughout the writing, the question that stands out most is if it’s possible to feel a deep sense of loss for someone you have never actually met.
Perhaps it is Stevens’s aforementioned affectual style of comedy, which worked to lessen the physical and emotional distance between the stage and the screen, that connected Kay to the persona of the late comedian. Similarly, the exhibition’s strategy to keep the viewing experience a solitary one was successful in closing the separation between the viewer and the art, and renewing a participatory relationship with looking that is so often lost. Within my internal musings, the straw transcended a tangible material that can be moved, brushed, pressed, and smelled and became something more symbolic: a connective existential presence that reflected the intimate knowledge of what I have come to understand as my sense of selfhood.
remember when we were together forever, 2020. Installation documentation altered by Jillian Kay Ross. Courtesy of Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto.
remember when we were together forever, 2020. Installation documentation altered by Jillian Kay Ross. Courtesy of Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto.
Lauren Lavery is a Toronto-based visual artist, writer and editor of Peripheral Review, an online platform of exhibition reviews on Canadian emerging artists and spaces.
Cassandra Cassandra
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Toronto, ON
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[1] Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Feathertop: A Moralized Legend,” http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/135/.
