Description of the exhibition
“I really have this strong memory of hearing my footsteps on the snow, it being very, very dark, and then seeing the northern lights.” remembers Carola Grahn in an interview for the Canadian Centre for Architecture. In her sculpture, the audience is invited to experience a similar sense of awe and amazement as she recreates this experience with a colourful transparent curtain weaving through the space. Grahn thus inspires an engagement with winter landscapes through a Sámi worldview that is rooted in snow, ice, and water. The brass rings that extend from the work continue this connection, an extension of gátki, the traditional Sámi clothing rooted in different myths and stories passed on for generations.
Beyond its contemplative beauty, Offernat (Votive Night) embodies a critique of Western idealization and the fetishization of Northern nature, specifically as they relate to Indigenous cultures. Irony and institutional critique are also important, illustrated here by the literal commoditization of an ephemeral, natural, near-spiritual phenomenon into a consumable readymade. This tension between the magic of the dancing sky as an ethereal winter experience and its ability to be seen by the masses creates an ambiguity that replicates how winter has been packaged and sold in Québec.
