Maryse Larivière

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Maryse Larivière, "Under the Cave of Winds (still)," 2017

16mm film with sound, 4:03. Courtesy of the artist.

The Writing Table with Maryse Larivière and Shazia Hafiz Ramji – Writing the Atmospheres: November 14, 7:00 PM

Reception and Reading: November 16, 7:00 PM Curated by Weiyi Chang

Orgazing marks Montréal-based artist Maryse Larivière’s first exhibition in Vancouver. An exhibition in three parts, Orgazing draws on the histories and cultural contexts of women’s literary writing and experimental film, and figures desire as a point of reference through which to invoke new paradigms of knowledge acquisition and production. Centred on the tribulations of fictional female protagonist, Orgazing analyses the constructed character of knowledge and objectivity, the possibility of new theories of epistemology, and the uneven power dynamics that certain forms of knowledge perpetuate.

On a rocky outcrop off the shores of Scotland, an unnamed protagonist conducts research into new modes of communication under the watchful eyes of her captors. A slim red volume contains the protagonist’s intimate letters to her lover and comrade, detailing the speculative world they inhabit and the nature of their transgressive research. As her captivity persists, the protagonist’s words dissolve from familiar phonetic arrangements into whistles, warbles, chirps and trills – pure sound and vibration exceeding the limits of language. Broaching a world of auditory pleasure, the protagonist elaborates a new regime of scientific research, one that articulates a relational intimacy that refigures the dynamic between subject and object, self and other.

A 16mm film installation illustrates fragments of the protagonist’s journey, oscillating between her gaze and the surveillance cameras that track her movements through her concrete jail and the rugged island terrain. Projected from an artificial rock emitting a single beam of light, the film installation moves across different perspectives and reinforces the multiple subject positions that constitute and produce knowledge. A new 16mm film further details the protagonist’s novel research methodologies and elaborates the speculative future she inhabits.

The Writing Table with Maryse Larivière and Shazia Hafiz Ramji – Writing the Atmospheres

This event is free but space is limited. Please email writingtable@orgallery.org to register.

Please join The Writing Table for a workshop with artist and writer, Maryse Larivière, and poet and critic, Shazia Hafiz Ramji. The two-part workshop begins with an introduction to Larivière’s multi-sensory and autofictional practice that explores the idea of the captive author, which encourages performative and embodied strategies towards writing. Held in conjunction with Larivière’s exhibition, Orgazing, Writing the Atmospheres invokes the artist’s recent book, which takes the form of an epistolary novel written by an unnamed female protagonist held captive on a remote island.

Maryse Larivière is an artist, writer and scholar whose work crosses sculpture, performance, collage, text, and film. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University, where her research focuses on women’s textual production. Larivière has exhibited widely in Canada, including Optica, Montreal; Untitled Art Society, Calgary; DNA Art Space, London; The Rooms, St. John’s; and Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff. Her writing has been published in periodicals such as Canadian Art and C Magazine, and she has written three books including Orgazing (2017), Hummzinger (2016), and Where Wild Flowers Grow (2015).

Shazia Hafiz Ramji’s first book, Port of Being (Invisible Publishing), received the Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry and was published in October 2018. Her poetry is forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2018 and her criticism has appeared in Canadian Literature, Quill & Quire, and Chicago Review of Books. Shazia was recently interviewed by Sheryl MacKay of CBC North by Northwest, where she talked about Vito Acconci and the influence of listening and perambulatory practices in her writing.