A selected retrospective of video works by Pauline Cummins and Sandra Vida at the CCI – Irish Cultural Centre Paris.
A two-person exhibition of performative video installations by Irish artist Pauline Cummins and her Canadian collaborator, Sandra Vida. Between One and Another gathers key works selected from over thirty years of art production, including significant statements on feminist issues evolving through that time period. Between One and Another illustrates international connections and intends to facilitate dialogue around the individual’s role within society and within the cycles of life.
Colloquium: Sweeping Changes
This colloquium seeks to address the influence of feminist thought on art, both in France and elsewhere, and poses the questions: “Did the video and performance artists of the 80s make sweeping changes?” Is it time now for an assessment of further changes to be made? The social, historical and regional contexts of the works on show at the CCI were discussed by writers, curators and the artists. The artists Pauline Cummins and Sandra Vida were joined by the following participants: Mireille Perron, French-Canadian artist and writer, Ann Cvetkovich, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Texas, Agnès Aubague, French artist and Charlotte Gould, Senior lecturer in British art at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris.
View the catalogue here.
Performance: Sweeping Changes
Designed as an opening performance titled Sweeping Changes, specially scripted for the courtyard of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, which was once an Irish College for the education of priests.
Cummins noticed that historic signs in the courtyard indicating the different Bishoprics of Ireland, sadly now shared the same titles of recent publications and reports of child abuse in Ireland, such as the Ferns Report. Sweeping Changes reflected the necessity for change within the Irish Roman Catholic Church structures and the necessity for a new brush to sweep the corruption, lies and complicity into the light. The performance also held some hope for healing and change. The recently published Ryan Report into institutional abuse in Ireland became a cultural object that was sectioned into direct quotes from the victims of that abuse. The quotes were put into envelopes and handed to each member of the audience, who were asked to line up, unquestioningly, as the many children had in those institutions. Cummins represented the bureaucratic aspect of these investigations in the performance, while Sandra Vida evoked healing with a giant salt circle in the centre of the courtyard. The performance was part of their major exhibition, Between One and Another a collection of video work by Cummins and Vida over the last decade, which was on show in the gallery of Centre Culturel Irlandais.