Like A Conjuring
Erika DeFreitas asks us to slow down and think about an Ontario farmhouse. But the underlying quest of her research is to evaluate how we understand both history and place.
Erika DeFreitas, “Like A Conjuring,” 2018
detail of installation (courtesy of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg)
One luxury of contemporary art is the way it asks us to slow down and take our time with it. Understandings are not always immediate and investigation is an important, even precious, part of the viewing process. In doing so, we bring ourselves, and our interpretations, to the context of the work.
Like A Conjuring, an exhibition by Erika DeFreitas on view until May 19 at Winnipeg’s Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, is a case in point. Created during a residency at Bradley House in Mississauga, Ont., her works document, honour and question the material history of the location, a designated heritage site. Through her work and associated writings, viewers are invited to share the experience.
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Erika DeFreitas, “Like A Conjuring,” 2018
detail of installation (courtesy of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg)
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Erika DeFreitas, “Like A Conjuring,” 2018
detail of installation (courtesy of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg)
Thick with settler and colonial history, the two-storey saltbox-style farmhouse was built in 1830 on the shore of Lake Ontario by the Bradley family, United Empire Loyalist settlers who had owned an indigo plantation in the American South. The house was moved two miles inland in the 1960s after the land was sold to the British American Oil Company.
DeFreitas dives into both the connection and disconnection of this history through refurbished replicas of objects and materials that would have been in the house. She asks many questions through her work: What can materials tell us about a place? What makes a material experience authentic?
Her research into the space – evidenced through things like maps, plants, photographs, indigo-treated objects and plaster casts of hands – becomes the work. Fragments and attempts to recreate lost materials – and a sense of place – are central to the images and objects she displays in glass-topped cases.
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Erika DeFreitas, “Like A Conjuring,” 2018
installation view (courtesy of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg)
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Erika DeFreitas, “Like A Conjuring,” 2018
installation view (courtesy of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg)
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Erika DeFreitas, “Like A Conjuring,” 2018
installation view (courtesy of Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg)
DeFreitas, a Toronto-area artist who was on the long list for the 2017 Sobey Art Award, says these objects help her “think through the movement of water.” The importance of water is reflected in most works. “If the image of the lake is present, maybe that will help bring the water back,” she says. In one of the video works in the show, crystal glasses filled with water from Lake Ontario are set on a table. Fingers dip into the glasses and attempt to make them sing, summoning the water that haunts the house.
History and place – and how we understand them – matter in this show. DeFreitas’ work imprints questions on viewers about their perceptions of how we create a history of place, even if we have no connection to it. She thoughtfully weaves concepts into her work, letting visitors walk with her through an intricate process of artistic research and found understandings. ■
Like a Conjuring is on view at the Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts from April 13 to May 19, 2018.
Platform: Centre for Photographic & Digital Arts
121-100 Arthur St, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 1H3
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