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youngbloodinitiative · 4 years

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Creative Creatures: Anne Isabelle Leonard

“Portraits of Absence” Photo by Maude Plante Husaruk

Co-founder of initiatives Danser Dans l'Noir and Backcountry Artist Residency, Canadian artist Anne Isabelle Leonard is an exemplar of what interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary mean. Exploring human fragility and its impact and consequences on its environments; the tensions between instinct and rationality, intention and reaction, Leonard uses sculpture, performance, drawing, painting as well as video and photography in her works. Candy talked to Anne Isabelle Leonard about her practice.

Candy: Hello, Isabelle, it has been a while. How are you? You have just been back from a break away, haven’t you? The photos look amazing - beautiful snowy Canadian nature.

AIL: Hey Candy! It has… but time seems to just have flown by since last time we saw each other! I’ve just come back from Northern British Columbia, I was spending time in the Skeena Valley which is a truly inspiring place filled with some of Canada’s most spectacular landscapes. It wasn’t supposed to be a break, but this new reality forced me to take more time for myself (laughs)! I recently opened my first solo exhibition at the local art gallery of Terrace in March, which was an ode to avalanches and the fragile balance of mountainscapes, inspired by the snowy Canadian landscapes captured in the photos you’re probably referring to.

Part of the “Residual Landscape” series by Anne Isabelle Leonard Photo courtesy of the artist

Candy: How are you adapting to this new ‘normal’ as an artist? Many of us artists and curators are at a crossroad right now to evolve and adapt. Did you do any online performances or focus on creating visual works? Or do you have another way around this situation? AIL: Mmm.. I think that the first thing for me is that I don’t believe this is the new normal quite yet. I feel like we’ve yet to reach a point where we are not waiting anymore for things to go back to 'normal', a transition which could lead to refocusing energy on reimagining our world instead of mourning it. I’m interested in this shift of perspective and seeing this new 'normal' as an opportunity to reimagine our relationship to art and culture. What purpose can and should we uphold art in this context? Creativity is definitely needed in these times, but how to consume it if not in our usual ways? Outside of a gallery, without a captive public, without our usual deadlines and objectives, how would an artist and art consumer want to define oneself? There’s a definite need to evolve and adapt, in thinking about the role of art in a specific context of time and place. I didn’t feel the urge to run to technology for my own practice since the beginning of the pandemic — or maybe I still quite haven’t grasped how I want to reimagine my work in a digital context. These uncertain times automatically led me to be drawn towards the outdoor space. It was a very natural reflex. Nature has always held a deep place in my heart as a comforting and inspiring space.

Candy: You have been busy since you went back to Canada a few years ago: exhibitions, performances, your Back Country Residency Programme, Danser Dans l’Noir... Active in a few creative disciplines! It reminds me of where we met and worked together - Mediamatic, exactly a multi-disciplinary platform. Do you think that being involved in different creative processes, whether it be curating, performing, drawing, making, is important for you as an artist? AIL: Art (creativity) has always been ingrained into the way I think, the way I communicate and interact with the world.

In my opinion, art is an alternative/complementary source of education, a way in which to translate and experience different ideas, perspectives and concepts.

I was never able to choose one way of going about this, never able to settle for one medium. And oh how hard I’ve tried! But it never felt right, as if it never felt complete : it was like trying to tell a story using only words, without any sayings, intonations or hand gestures. I just wasn’t doing justice to any of my ideas and felt absolutely limited. When I stumbled upon the word 'interdisciplinary' for the first time, I remember feeling such a sense of release, as if I had finally found the box in which to settle my practice. I was still separating my work as an artist, a curator and an art educator (since grants and art councils ask you to). I strongly believe that all our actions feed one another ; my art practice is actively influenced by my curatorial practice and vice versa. Therefore it is impossible for me to distinguish them. I’ve decided to exit my 'inter/multi/transdisciplinary' box (or whatever people want to call it these days) to build one big castle with all my boxes, thus consolidating them into one complete transcendental practice.

Photo by Juan Felipe Hedmont

Candy: For you, would you think that it is giving you more possibilities and freedom in developing and expressing different concepts? AIL: Definitely. I always say that I work by concepts, adapting my practice and mediums to properly communicate the message I’m trying to convey. Art is a mean of communication which has the intent to share a concept, a message or an emotion. Interdisciplinarity, in my book, meant that I could blaze poetic and absurd paths leading a viewer into the inner depths of my thoughts and perspectives. I think there is an importance in considering how to shape a concept while bearing in mind your/an audience, which should be a more considered subject in the field of arts. Finding a balance between one’s artistic integrity and communal value is an arduous task, but ultimately allows observers an outlook into your artistic process.

I believe the world is a richer place when art is considered as a science; as a way to view and explain one’s life experience which can be used to teach philosophy, physics, mathematics, languages, and more. We are easily drawn to the mystery and mystical aspect of art and of the artist, but I truly believe that artists’ perspectives, if properly recognised and contextualised, enrich social conversations, structures and/or “progress” on a very tangible level.

Candy: I notice it is especially the case with your performances and fashion, or more accurately, wearable art. Those wearable objects seem to play an important role in your performances. They are part of the pieces as much as your movement. They are one of the primary elements. Like in “An Open War with Id”, for example? I am curious to hear your creative process behind and how the visual and movement came together in the piece. Does fashion inspire the piece or the other way round?

AIL: Projects tend to accompany me over the years, one iteration at a time. Moment of War with Id is definitely one of them. The first performance made in 2014 with these accessories was done at dusk, in a dark and empty shearing shed of the Australian bush. In 2018, the character was brought back to perform in a pristine white gallery space in the metropolis of Montreal. My wearable pieces definitely inspire my presence and movement, channeling characters and personalities, transmuting my body into an emotion, tapping into an entity within myself. Though wearable art pieces are important, another crucial element which affects my performances is context. Context automatically sets an intention in one’s movement. In this case, I didn’t want to perform at first as I felt uncomfortable with social codes of viewers interaction with live art within a designated art space, uneasy with the performance of art consumption -- of being watched in a motionless silence, a resigned acceptance from beginning to end. This way of interacting with art creates a segregation between public and artist, placing one party as creator and maker and the other as a consumer. I seek a connection with the public to enable an experience of art in which resides (for me at least) the true purpose of a work of art. This social etiquette is an imposing aspect which I felt in the obligation to consider in the execution of my piece.

That’s when it all clicked: I saw my performance as an animal in a zoo, out of his natural context and there to be curiously observed by a rather confused audience solely seeking entertainment. I entered the room, dressed in black from head to toe, with my arm extensions and my burnt plastic mask, letting my Id take over. Nothing was rehearsed. I was channeling the energy that was fed to me, observing the observer, reacting to the absurdity of the context.

“An Open War with Id” Photo courtesy of the artist

Candy: How/ when did dance and movement come into the picture, in your artistic practice? I am sure it came very naturally for you, as somebody creative and expressive. AIL: Dance and movement played many roles in my life over the years. I started as a hip hop dancer and then coach, which brought confidence to the shy little girl I was. But it’s when I started university that I started to experiment with performance art, without really understanding what I was doing. I was instinctively drawn to this intimate proximity of my body to my practice. The connection between my dance background and my art performance practice was made by encountering the world of Butoh - a japanese theatrical dance movement born in the 50s. This artistic movement is all about setting intention in actions, in finding and fostering the vitality which drives you in the present. Intention over form, process over resolution.

There’s a performative side to life which attracts me ; all that we do can be interpreted, danced, acted (whether consciously or unconsciously) but nothing can truly be codified. Butoh embodies that, channeling the beauty in the mundane mourning rooted in the cycle of life and death. Moving did always come naturally to me, but moving in this way is raw and deeply instinctive, which I had learned to tame through social constructs and almost chose to ignore in order to make space for a more rational and constructed interpretation of beauty.

Hip hop taught me freedom; Butoh taught me intention in presence; together, they drove me to the meditative habitat in which actually rests my artistic performance practice.

Candy: I first heard of Danser dans l’Noir which you co-founded a couple of years ago. It is a brilliant concept! Ultimately we move and dance to express ourselves, but somehow, most of the time, it became the equivalent of a performance. Even if we are dancing in a club, I am certain most of us are conscious that we are being looked at, which affects how we move and how much we are expressing the emotions deep down. It’s no wonder that it became a success in Montreal since 2017! Are you still actively organising it? How often does it go? And how did it go financing it? I would love to hear your success story. Are you planning to expand it to other cities or countries?

AIL: Ah yes, Danser dans l’Noir is still ongoing! Even during COVID, we kept it going by posting playlists for people to get crazy in their living room. We did start the project in 2017, but it has been an idea I had in my head since 2013. You see, the concept is based on an Australian event called No Lights No Lycra. I was a participant back then and fell in love with the concept. I felt liberated. I love dancing as it brings me back to the moment, to my physicality. No need to explain why I have issues dancing in a club as a woman, but as a dancer, I realized I was always performing for others (and even for myself) and felt a pressure to constantly entertain people around me. That pressure evaporates when dancing in complete darkness. I met the cofounder of Danser Dans l’Noir, Steve Day, in 2016 when coming back from my time in Argentina. He too had experienced NLNL but in Sweden. We found this tiny room which could accommodate only 15 people… but after only two sessions, people were lining up outside the door to attend our event and journalists from CBC and local newspapers were wanting to interview us. 'Timing is key' is definitely true in this story: our event launched at the same time as the #metoo movement started and we were advertising a safe and sober space to dance and express yourself freely. We hadn’t realised how therapeutic our event was for people. We knew it was and had been for us personally, but for some reason we thought we would host only five or six people a week, when in the end we are now fully booked weeks in advance for every dance session. We managed to build a strong inclusive community, which has been following us for years now : people of all backgrounds, ages, genders, identities and cultures all reunited once every two weeks for their love of dance.

Art is to be experienced and lived, it is to accompany us through our experience of life. I’ve always seen this importance as it is what art has been for me all my life. Of course it is beautiful to see a well rehearsed choreography, but the goal here is not to learn how to dance and place your body in a codified manner, but simply to move.

Candy: You mentioned that your body of work explores human fragility and in ‘'Entity’', it is about truly surrendering, accepting the limits within us as humans. It was a very meditative process. I can imagine it being a rather challenging, or even painful, performance being elevated for 10 mins or so! What makes human fragility a subject for your continued exploration? Was it physically challenging for you to perform this piece? AIL: I’ve always felt fragile and vulnerable in a world which appeared to request constant strength, fierceness and perfection. I’ve always felt deeply connected to the small moments, to these fleeting emotions and these grand questions, which appeared to be a waste of time. After trying to follow this path of strength and perfection, which ultimately led to unhealthy practices such as substance abuse and cyclical stages of depression, I realised that the fragility I was so desperately trying to push down was my connection to the world ; that the ephemerality of our existence, the vulnerability of our physical, emotional and psychological being, is what ultimately ties us to one another. There’s a saying I love which says that the costumes and stages may vary, but the script remains the same. There is so much beauty in endings, falls and cycles, and many important teachings in sharing how we chose to live our own vulnerability. In my piece “Entity”, I was interested in exploring the limits of the body and the mind. The shape may be imposing and strong, but the body itself being suspended in the structure slowly breathes its way down in the harness through mental and physical fatigue. It was my first artistic performance ever shown in front of a public. I remember the challenge it was to accept and execute my will for a piece that was subtle and anchored in the moment : no dance moves, no choreography, just live action directed by reactions. Hanging by small woollen threads; surrendering to the fatigue; letting myself lower into the metal harness where taking a breath becomes harder and harder; observing the public calmly watch my struggle. There is something strange about art performance in an art specific space, in the way the public stands still, watching you with so much attention and ready to accept most of what is going to come out of the piece… but in the end it all comes back to my desire to fully embrace my art, to live and be lived by my practice. And for that, vulnerability becomes the objective, human fragility my life’s work.

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“Entity” filmed by Jordan Davidson

Candy: The relationship between human and nature is another one of your ongoing investigations through art. You explored their coexistence in “Conversational”, didn’t you? Being there, having a conversation with the log of wood.

AIL: My practice has been led by a question I’ve been asking myself since the age of seven - why are humans so horrible to their environment? I find myself often shocked by the illogical and destructive results of human existence in our own home. After years of research, an answer led me to the core of our being - fear. I believe that fear, as well as fear of fear, drives many of our decisions and actions on a daily basis, either consciously or unconsciously. As this fear originates naturally from our fragility as vulnerable and ephemeral animal beings (even more evident now with this pandemic), I’m interested in the blurred line and tensions between intention and reaction, between rationality and instinct.

An ethological observation of humanity, as ethologist Desmond Morris achieved in his documentary The Human Animal, allowed me to grasp my own idea of where this separation between humanity and nature may originate from. For example, realising that light was conceived by the fear of the many dangers associated with darkness, that an economy based in consumerism thrives by playing on basic survival needs, that cities are controlled environments built in reaction to the fear of the uncontrollable chaos that is Nature. Humans passed a very interesting step in their evolution: the achievement of adapting the environment to the species and not the species to the environment. Understanding that it comes from pure survival issues is primordial for our growth; we are now recognising the inhaling power of our structural progress, how minorities, cultures, animals, plants are being absorbed by our definition of success and evolution. Richness lies in diversity, which allows access to various understandings of the world, and therefore of ourselves. In “Conversational”, I was improvising a butoh inspired performance in an abandoned house in the leftovers of a Yukon gold rush village. Inaccessible by road, the village is maintained to serve as a museum of that era; grass is cut, trees are pushed back, houses repaired. All around thrives a deep forest wanting to take back over. This scenery made me question our determination in preserving relentlessly. Looking to my left, I could see our obsession for conserving physical traces of our past, keeping time from making memories fade away into the abyss of collective memory. To my right, I saw the recycling process of natural elements, how death is necessary to the renewal of life. I thus went walking in this forest, picking dead branches and plants along the way, with which I fabricated the head piece used in the performance. I was using the log as a stand to build the mask, and when I took it off to try it on, the log was there, staring at me on his stool. I am touched by the ephemerality of natural elements, it speaks to me. I want to grasp this fleeting beauty with a light hand with no intent of possession over it.

“Conversational” Photo by Jason Kofke

Candy: Speaking of nature, I am sure many of our nature-loving artist readers would be curious about your residency programme Backcountry Artist Residency in Northern British-Columbia in Canada - merging the outdoors, nature, art and community into one. Art making, skiing, camping and workshops together seem like a dream. It is one of your recent projects, right? What was the beginning like? Is it ongoing? Are you there to guide the programme yourself?

AIL: A couple years ago now, I’ve decided to start a project with a good friend of mine, Taylor Dilley. We are both practicing artists and outdoor fanatics and recognise the immense impact our outdoor practices has on our art making process. We wanted to offer our experience and the tools to access such spaces to many other artists. We’ve thus started the Backcountry Artist Residency with the idea of emerging six artists a year in the natural, social and cultural landscape of the wild winters of northern British-Columbia, Canada. We wish to equip artists with the skills to navigate the outdoors in winter conditions in order to foster an independent, long lasting and loving bond with the environment.

By enabling access to natural sources of inspiration, our program highlights the fragile beauty of the rapidly changing winter season. We believe bridging art, community and nature is a catalyst towards redefining our relationship to nature. The residency will alternate between meetings with local artists and community members, workshops, art making as well as backcountry winter activities and expeditions. Though this experience will offer the residents the time and space to reflect on their own practice while surrounded in some of Nature’s finest landscapes, the objective of this project is to build a community of artists inspired by Nature and engaged within the communities defending it. Taylor and I unite our own personal strengths as mediators to run this program to local leaders to offer an immersive experience to participating artists. The objective is to have a positive long-term impact on artistic practice, local communities as well as environment. Of course, starting such a program is quite complex. We are still in the process of building the residency, which won’t launch before another year or two because of the pandemic. In the meantime, we are focusing on building the Outdoor Artist Collective, a community of passionate artists wanting to use their artistic voice for social and environmental change, through locally held artistic incubators. This is all still very embryonic, but we are already quite excited. More details will be made available by the end of the summer on the facebook page of B.A.R. . Candy: Why, do you think, is there the need to bridge art, community and nature? Usually when we need to do something is when we believe that it’s not sufficient. Do you think that the links are broken and need to be reconnected again?

AIL: Over the past years as a skier, I’ve seen drastic seasonal changes: less snow every year, rain in January, millilitres of ice rain, etc. It really affected my skiing practice and ability to go out safely in mountains (unstable terrains for avalanches, etc.), and therefore my personal relationship to my environment. To witness such dramatic changes within such a short span of time is worrying. These changes shouldn’t be observable, or at least, not this quickly. The insight my love for the outdoors has offered me is significant: I feel a deep intimacy and fondness for nature, especially winter landscapes. This pristine, ephemeral and fragile beauty can seem far removed from our realities, often perceived as frigid, hostile and even for some, deadly. What I see though, is a disappearing season, a vital piece of the cycle of yearly renewal fading slowly into the warming atmosphere of our memories. I do not think that the links are fully broken per say, but we’ve definitely managed to detach our identity from nature in many ways. As living beings, we need to remember that we will not only never be able to fully disconnect our existence from our environment, but that we depend on it. Our economy, based on exponential growth, cannot remain built on the consumption of depleting resources. It makes no sense. I never understood the economic 'logic' of instant profit and how little long-term environmental impact is considered in the equation. It’s not about finding a 'sustainable way' to keep consuming as much as we are now, but to redefine how much we can (or actually need to) appropriate for the sake of humanity’s consumption. I’m confused and scared by this obsession over power and control.

Art holds a power which transcends words and logic. It sparks curiosity, animates imagination, shapes hope and inspires desire. Art holds a power to recognise the intricacy of individuality within collectivity by not only establishing deep connections with many individuals no matter the sociocultural or economical background or the education level, but also by allowing us all to express and share moments of our brief existence.

I am convinced that life has to be simpler than what we are told it should be. That it’s truth lies in witnessing its omnipresent illogical beauty in small moments like walking in the forest and noticing the complex grace of a knot in a dead tree, feeling the collapse of the cold wind on your cheek bones while walking on a mountain ridge, taking the time to contemplate the intricate line work of an old woman’s skin, or deeply connecting with the colour palette of an artist’s artwork. These may seem like banal moments in a lifetime, but they are most tangible in describing my existence as a living being.

Part of the “Residual Landscape” series Photo courtesy of the artist

Candy: Who are the artists that inspired you to be the artist you are today?

AIL: What a tough question. I am inspired by artists of course, but also by a multitude of individuals from various backgrounds which have crossed my path over the years. I take my inspiration from literature, psychoanalysis, entrepreneurship, science, philosophy… My inspiration also comes in a quite transdisciplinary portfolio. As a young artist, I was highly influenced by my past life in the fashion world, obsessed with the ingeniosity and extreme creativity of designer Alexander McQueen and his successor Iris Van Herpen. They’ve inspired me to constantly push the limits of my practice and to continually renew viewers’ expectations. My love for the medium of fashion was an awe to being able to create wearable art ; to have it move and be embodied, to see it circulate in the world freely living a life of its own. The fashion shows McQueen and Van Herpen delivered introduced me to the idea of performance and storytelling, pushing fashion as more than an industry by bearing a critical perspective through the medium. I’ve always enjoyed artists that were able to convey a strong and cohesive message while having a striking sense of aesthetics.

I delight over a direct 'no bullshit' approach to art. I want to understand, discover and feel. Make me cry, make me gasp, make me laugh, make me (re)think. I think that’s why I fell in love with the bodywork of the “king of the no bullshit”, mister Ed Atkins. Atkin’s approach to art, but also his presence and talks outside of his art practice, was the first time I was exposed to the idea of the artist as a whole : what you express through your presence in and outside of art making influences your direction as a creator. I was struck by his multidisciplinary approach which also included his own person within his practice. Of course, many other artists with a Live Art approach such as Rebecca Horn, Levi Van Levuw and Valérie Blass were great influences to my work. Recently, I’ve been greatly inspired by some of the rural artists I’ve been in touch with while building my residency program in the landscapes of Northern Canada. Artists that do not identify themselves as artists, but simply witness art as being part of their lives. Contemplative artists observing and speaking about what would seem like the 'banal' or 'simple ideas' to the contemporary art world, artists involved in their communities and taking part in a contextualised slow art movement. Candy: Seeing the number of projects you have created, I wonder if you have new ones brewing? What are they?

AIL: I am presently working on a participatory performance piece which seeks to initiate a safe space within the public sphere to enable a discussion on loss and mourning. A few weeks ago, I lost my dear grandmother as well as a friend who passed away too young. While sharing my experience of going through these losses to friends around me, I’ve quickly realised that many were also dealing with mourning, trying to keep their head up high through this grieving period while being isolated in confinement. Grief is seen as an individual act, but this pandemic is a period of mourning for all of us, whether it be grieving the loss of an individual or of the passing of our past reality. It is a time when we need to open ourselves collectively to our vulnerability, share and accept our pain and our fears to one another in order to feel support through it all. Using blind contour drawing techniques, I invite people to draw a loss loved one from memories spent with this individual. Spending time with them by looking in their glance, hearing their laugh, taking a moment to relive these memories through the action of tracing lines. Another project I am working on is “Aveux de Faiblesse”, a collection of documentary electroacoustic sound composition exploring the reality of intergenerational disconnection linked to a fear of ageing.

A preview of the project here

Candy: Whether it be your new projects or new art pieces, I am looking forward to seeing them! Thank you for joining me for the conversation, Isabelle :)

Anne Isabelle Leonard https://cargocollective.com/anneisabelleleonard/ Backcountry Artist Residency https://backcountryartistresidency.org/

Danser Dans l'Noir https://www.facebook.com/DDLNMTL/

#CREATIVE CREATURES #canadian #woman artist

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