The SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art presents I haven’t been a figment of my own imagination. For this project, the curators Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley examine the heritage of the 1970s feminist art and the current practice of four artists: Aleesa Cohene, Luanne Martineau, Lili Reynaud-Dewar and Lucie Stahl. Inventing contemporary visual forms that revisit the past, these artists renew and stimulate a dialogue between feminist generations. A brochure produced to accompany the exhibition includes writing by the artists and curators.



Aleesa Cohene (Canada) diverts the Hollywood genre, appropriating excerpts of films from the 1970s and 1980s to compose a video montage that describes the tumultuous emotional overload between two women in love.



Luanne Martineau (Canada) borrows from the textile arts, revisiting the modernist aesthetic to create imposing works that dominate the space and destabilize the spectator with powerful evocations of the body.



Lili Reynaud-Dewar (France) collaborates with performers to create performances and installations that trace and examine where collaborations with several performers are used to tell complex stories that elicit an examination of the issues involved in power and identity.



Lucie Stahl (Germany) creates photo collages in which documents emblematic of the baby-boomer generation are stripped of their context; the resulting element of strangeness acts as a singular reinterpretation of this key era in the evolution of feminism.



Parallel to the exhibition, SBC invites the public to a program of events and film screenings. By creating a forum for discussion and convivial exchanges with artists and art historians who have made a contribution to the second wave of feminism, notably in Montreal, I haven’t been a figment of my own imagination provides a space for reflection on the current issues of feminism in contemporary art.

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