Attention! Opening reception pushed back to Sunday March 17th, at 3pm!
La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario presents
For An Epidemic Resistance
by artist Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen
Sudbury, March 14th 2013 — An unexplained ‘laughter epidemic disease phenomenon’ that occurred in central Africa in 1962 is used here as a conceptual framework for the project For An Epidemic Resistance. This research-based project from artist Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen consists primarily of a twenty-five channel sound installation. It is accompanied by a silent video entitled Documentation For An Epidemic Resistance.
The laughter epidemic occurred in the village of Kashasha, in Tanganyika (formerly Tanzania). The social hysterical wave commenced on January 30th 1962 at a mission-run middle school for girls. An explosion of contagious laughter persisted for six months and infected several hundred people in the contaminated community and neighbouring villages. While laughter occurred during the Tanganyikian epidemic mass hysteria, comic or humorous stimuli have not yet been identified.
Nguyen believes that laughter transgresses linguistic and cultural limitations, whereas humour is confined within them. Therefore, in For An Epidemic Resistance, the artist investigates the mechanisms of laughter independently from humour.
The laughter epidemic is used as a visual and sonic reference for the installation For An Epidemic Resistance. Twenty-five loudspeakers are placed in a classroom fashion, in rows and alleys. The sound devices hang from the ceiling, inviting the viewers to walk freely through the installation. Alongside the hanging speakers, a two-minute silent black & white video entitled Documentation For An Epidemic Resistance is on display. The video reveals the strategies used for the audio recording of the dynamic sound installation.
Québécoise of Vietnamese origin, artist Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen currently lives and works in Brooklyn (NY) and Stockholm (SWE). Using a wide range of mediums, Nguyen’s artistic practice is based on research and feminist theory and investigates questions of historicity, community, utopian politics and multiculturalism. She aims to reveal the political pertinence of forgotten anecdotes deemed trivial by placing them in a new light.
The opening reception of For An Epidemic Resistance will be held at the GNO, 174 Elgin St., Sudbury, Sunday March 17th at 3pm, in company of the artist Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen. The exhibition runs until April 19th 2013. The gallery hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday from noon to 5pm and Thursday and Friday from noon to 7pm. Admission is free.
This exhibit is sponsored by Equipment North Inc., Genelec, and LOL Sudbury. Our season sponsors are CBON, la Première Chaîne, Espace musique and Radio-Canada Television | Internet, 50 Carleton, Le Voyageur and Le Loup 98,9 La voix du Nord. Thanks to our funding partners Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canada Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, and the City of Greater Sudbury.
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Further information:
Daniel Aubin
Communications officer
La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario
174 Elgin St
Sudbury ON P3E 4N5
705.673.4927 or 1877.358.6615
gn-o.org
communication@gn-o.org
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