History Lesson - Install-action - 1608 - 400 Years of the Founding of Quebec

‘Install-action’ & Installation Exhibition as part of the ‘Conquest’ Project curated by Richard Martel, in Le Lieu, Quebec, Canada. ‘Install-action’ Performance with a resulting one-person Installation Exhibition.(The Performance/Install-action and Installation was in response to the theme of the ‘Conquest’ project relating to the anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, and the early conquest of Canada/Quebec.)Travel funded by the University of Ulster Research Institute.April 2008http://www.inter-lelieu.org/FR/lieu_archives_2007-2008_09.phpI was invited by artist/curator Richard Martel to participate in a project entitled “Conquest” which invited three Artists to respond to the theme and make performance Installations in the Le Lieu Gallery Space in Quebec City. Le Lieu has been presenting Performance Art for over three decades and is highly respected as one of Canada’s foremost Performance Art Venues and Theoretical Publishers. Having published many books, Journals, thematic papers, DVD’s etc.The theme demanded that I consider historical data withn my response within the gallery. As one of three artists: (Domingo Cisneros and Joel Hubaut being the other two), the ‘Conquest’ Theme asked each artist to consider the 400th anniversary of the founding of the City of Quebec and make a performative/installitive response within the gallery space as a one person Performance Exhibition.This was a unique and challenging project and I carried out a good deal of research into Irish Emigration to Canada/Quebec, ships logs, and emigrant stories, some of which made their way into the final artwork, as fragments of text and imagery. I created an Install-action within the Gallery Space working over two days. The resulting space and installation was then exhibited as a one-person exhibition.Questions that I dealt with in the resolution and development of a new artwork centred round issues such as:• How can I create a historically linked artwork within a Quebec gallery, which represents the human cost of the Irish Emigration to Canada?• What are the main visual and historical elements that I can distil and employ within an artwork centred on the exhibition theme?• What elements from past Install-action works can I employ within the new gallery and cultural context of Quebec City and with relation to the Theme?• Who can I use the Install-action format to link two historically distinct cultures and locations within the Gallery Space?