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ÉSERY MONDÉSIR: CHOUBLAK
Ésery Mondésir, Choublak #3 (detail), 2024. Courtesy of the artist
Open

September 17, 2024 to January 18, 2025

Choublak

Ésery Mondésir

Curator: Julia Eilers Smith

An evening of poetry followed by a reception with the artist will take place on Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 5:30 PM.

Stay tuned for more on the screenings, talks and hands-on image-making workshops that will be taking place throughout the Autumn.

Choublak, plant yo rele Hibiscus an franse a, se yon senbòl kiltirèl an Ayiti kote flè a se yon anblèm nasyonal. Gen moun ki panse li sòti sou kontinan Azi, gen lòt menm ki kwè se Lafrik li sòti. Sa nou sèten, sèke plant sa a dekoratif, li manjab, li se medikaman epi li anrasine byen fon nan kilti Karayib kontanporen an. Pou atis kanadyen-ayisyen Ésery Mondésir, choublak danse kole ak sije fondamantal pratik atistik li tankou: sa ki antrede, orijin ibrid, derasinman, wout migratwa, kreyolite ak kominote dyaspora yo.

Mondésir travay ak imaj fiks tankou imaj an mouvman. Li konbine yon apwòch dokimantè ak eksperimantal ki santre sou koneksyon li tabli ak lòt moun ki kite Ayiti nan fòse menm jan avèk li. Travay li yo dewoule tankou ti istwa kout sou ekzil, sou rezistans ak klandestinite, men tou istwa ki montre kontribisyon dyaspora ak eritaj peyi kote li soti a. Menm jan ak imaj li yo, pwezi aji tankou yon fòs santrifij ki pèmèt nou tande yon pakèt vwa ak ekperyans moun sosyete a kite sou kote.

Ekspozisyon Choublak la prezante kèk nan travay ki pi resan atis la fè. Travay sa yo te reyalize an kolaborasyon avèk moun ki nan dyaspora ayisyen an nan vil Monreyal, Toronto, Tijuana ak La Aván. Ekspozisyon an gen tou yon seri de fim pòtre ki abstrè ansamn ak yon seri imaj atis la te pran pandan vwayaj li nan peyi Chili ak peyi Trinidad ak Tobago avèk yon kamera titwou (pinhole camera). Li devlope imaj yo ak divès teknik ki enkòpore plant ak fèy. Entèvansyon sa yo li fè dirèkteman sou fim nan revele kèk fòm nou pat wè anvan epi kèk istwa kite antere byen fon nan materyalite pelikil la.

Youn nan chanm nan ekspozisyon an gen dokiman achiv ki soti nan Centre international de documentation et d’information haïtienne, caribéenne et afro-canadienne (CIDIHCA). Chanm sa dedye pou powèt Haïti Littéraire yo, yon gwoup kite egziste nan ane 1960 yo.

Choublak, plant yo rele Hibiscus an franse a, se yon senbòl kiltirèl an Ayiti kote flè a se yon anblèm nasyonal. Gen moun ki panse li sòti sou kontinan Azi, gen lòt menm ki kwè se Lafrik li sòti. Sa nou sèten, sèke plant sa a dekoratif, li manjab, li se medikaman epi li anrasine byen fon nan kilti Karayib kontanporen an. Pou atis kanadyen-ayisyen Ésery Mondésir, choublak danse kole ak sije fondamantal pratik atistik li tankou: sa ki antrede, orijin ibrid, derasinman, wout migratwa, kreyolite ak kominote dyaspora yo.

Mondésir travay ak imaj fiks tankou imaj an mouvman. Li konbine yon apwòch dokimantè ak eksperimantal ki santre sou koneksyon li tabli ak lòt moun ki kite Ayiti nan fòse menm jan avèk li. Travay li yo dewoule tankou ti istwa kout sou ekzil, sou rezistans ak klandestinite, men tou istwa ki montre kontribisyon dyaspora ak eritaj peyi kote li soti a. Menm jan ak imaj li yo, pwezi aji tankou yon fòs santrifij ki pèmèt nou tande yon pakèt vwa ak ekperyans moun sosyete a kite sou kote.

Ekspozisyon Choublak la prezante kèk nan travay ki pi resan atis la fè. Travay sa yo te reyalize an kolaborasyon avèk moun ki nan dyaspora ayisyen an nan vil Monreyal, Toronto, Tijuana ak La Aván. Ekspozisyon an gen tou yon seri de fim pòtre ki abstrè ansamn ak yon seri imaj atis la te pran pandan vwayaj li nan peyi Chili ak peyi Trinidad ak Tobago avèk yon kamera titwou (pinhole camera). Li devlope imaj yo ak divès teknik ki enkòpore plant ak fèy. Entèvansyon sa yo li fè dirèkteman sou fim nan revele kèk fòm nou pat wè anvan epi kèk istwa kite antere byen fon nan materyalite pelikil la.

Youn nan chanm nan ekspozisyon an gen dokiman achiv ki soti nan Centre international de documentation et d’information haïtienne, caribéenne et afro-canadienne (CIDIHCA). Chanm sa dedye pou powèt Haïti Littéraire yo, yon gwoup kite egziste nan ane 1960 yo.

Choublak, or hibiscus in Haitian Creole, is a cultural symbol and national emblem of Haiti. Thought to originate in Asia or Africa, this ornamental, edible, and medicinal plant is deeply rooted in contemporary Caribbean culture. For Canadian-Haitian artist Ésery Mondésir, choublak embodies the fundamental subjects of his practice: in-betweenness, hybrid origins, uprooting, migratory paths, as well as Creoleness and diasporic communities.

Working with still and moving images, Mondésir combines documentary and experimental approaches that are centered on his connections with individuals who, like him, were forced to leave Haiti. His works unfold in micro-narratives of exile, resistance, and clandestinity, but also of belonging and of the legacies linked to his native country. Like his images, poetry acts as a centrifugal force that allows a multiplicity of voices and experiences from the margins to be heard.

The exhibition Choublak presents the artist’s recent body of work, produced in collaboration with members of the Haitian diaspora in Montreal, Toronto, Tijuana and Havana. A series of abstract portrait films and images captured via pinhole camera while travelling through Chile and Trinidad and Tobago were developed with various image processing techniques, often incorporating plant residues. These interventions on the actual film reveal latent shapes and nascent stories buried deep within the materiality of the celluloid.

One of the rooms in the exhibition features archives from Montreal’s Centre international de documentation et d’information haïtienne, caribéenne et afro-canadienne (CIDIHCA), dedicated to the 1960s poetry group Haïti Littéraire.

Ésery Mondésir se atis, vidéyas ak sineyas. Li fèt an Ayiti, li baze Towonto nan peyi Kanada. Li te pwofesè lekòl segondè epi òganizatè sendika nan peyi Etazini ak Kanada, anvan l te fini yon metriz nan pwodiksyon sinema nan Inivèsite York an 2017. Zèv li yo pran sous yo nan memwa pèsonel oswa kolektif, nan achiv ofisyèl ak achiv popilè, nan lavi toulèjou pou l ofri yon lekti ki soti nan maj sosyete nou yo.

Li reyalize dènye pwojè li yo, nan kolaborasyon avèk manm dyaspora ayisyen an nan vil La Havana, Kiba ak Tijuana, Meksik. Travay sa yo pase toupatou, tankou nan Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Art Gallery of Ontario, George Eastman Museum (Rochester, NY), Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach), Third Horizon Film Festival (Miami) epi nan Open City Festival (Londres). An 2021, li vin pwofesè adjwen Fakilte Atizay nan inivèsite OCAD. Kounye a, li ap rapousib rechéch sou mannyè yo fè fim, sou imaj an mouvman, imaj yo fè alamen ak mouvman migrasyon nan yon kontèks postmigrasyon.

Ésery Mondésir is a Haitian-born video artist and filmmaker based in Toronto. Before earning his MFA in cinema production from York University in 2017, he worked as a high school teacher and labour organizer in the US and Canada. His work draws on personal and collective memory, official and vernacular archives, and the everyday to generate a reading of our societies from the margins.

His recent projects, in collaboration with members of the Haitian diaspora in Havana and Tijuana, have been exhibited worldwide, including at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal, the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the George Eastman Museum (Rochester), the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach), the Third Horizon Film Festival (Miami), as well as the Open City Festival (London). In 2021, he joined the art faculty at OCAD University as an Assistant Professor, where he continues to research process cinema, artisanal/handmade moving images, and migratory movements in a “postmigration” context.