Pizandawatc / The One Who Listens / Celui qui écoute

June 29 to November 17, 2024

Presenting a selection of works by Anishinaabe/French artist Caroline Monnet, this exhibition centres on a recent series of sculptures that explore language reclamation and intergenerational transmission through an engagement with the idea of land as a carrier of ancestral memory.

Meaning “the one who listens” in Anishinaabemowin, the title, Pizandawatc, comes from the traditional name of Monnet’s maternal family before surnames were changed by the Oblate missionaries at Kitigan Zibi, in the Outaouais region of Quebec. The title honours the artist’s great-grandmother, Mani Pizandawatc, who was the first in her family to have her territory divided into reserves. At the same time, the title references a receptive way of being in the world, reflected throughout Monnet’s artistic practice.

These new works extend Monnet’s considerations of time, oral histories and knowledge sharing. Driven by an impulse to preserve language in durable physical form, Monnet counters the ephemeral nature of the spoken word, reclaiming the Anishinaabe language by materializing its soundwaves in layered native and industrial wood. Additional bronze works capture the shapes of weathered wood naturally modified by the elements. Meanwhile, Monnet’s embroidered works incorporating language evoke the connective power of nature and the resilience of Indigenous cultural expressions.

Guest Curator: Mona Filip

This presentation is a modified version of an exhibition originally presented at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto

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The artist wishes to acknowledge the support of Catherine Sasseville, Raúl Aguilar Canela, Yso South, Amélie Dionoski, Marie Philibert-Dubois, Fred Caplette, Otami, Martin Schop, François Guinaudeau, Charlie Leroy, Noé Sardet, Richard Mardens, Kassandra Walters, Marc Boucrot, Simon Guibord, François Brochu, Atelier du Bronze, Atelier Clark, Blouin-Division, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Art Museum at the University of Toronto gratefully acknowledges operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, with additional exhibition support from the Indigenous Art Centre, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.