Sarah Wendt + Pascal Dufaux: The Mountain Moves While My Fingernails Grow

 “... around 200 million years ago the tectonic plates entered their fast stage, accelerating for 10 million years until they reached speeds of 20 millimeters per year, which is similar to how fast fingernails grow.”

– Didactic panel at Gros Morne National Park Visitor Information Centre (2018)

This immersive exhibition is the result of the artist-duo Sarah Wendt + Pascal Dufaux’s residency at Gros Morne National Park in 2018. Set primarily in the Tablelands, this exhibition describes the surreal experience that many people feel when they encounter Nature—the feeling of being tiny within a colossal vista, as well as the disorienting and overwhelming comprehension of one’s self in relation to geological time. Multisensory and intuitive, the artists transport visitors to a fantastic place where time is unclear. Videos, photographs, sound, natural elements and sculpture come together to generate a world that is somewhere between science fiction and a re-examined archaeological past.

Sarah Wendt and Pascal Dufaux share an art practice that takes form in sculpture, media art, installation and choreography. Their collaborative approach explores relationships to time, movement and perception while emphasizing the use of locally found and second-hand materials. They create an open-ended process that engages the viewer, inviting them to help create new forms of expression and understanding. Their residency in Gros Morne National Park represented a pivotal moment in the artists’ collaborative practice, launching a creative thread that has received considerable critical acclaim and reached international audiences.

To learn more about the Art in the Park artist-in-residence program (a partnership between The Rooms and Parks Canada): https://www.therooms.ca/programs-events/for-artists/artist-in-residence-air-program

About the Artists

Sarah Wendt (b. Charlottetown, PEI) is a Montréal-based multidisciplinary artist. Her work often involves choreography, performance, musical scores/conducting, installation/sculpture as she develops a kinesthetic response to the contingencies of collaboration.

Pascal Dufaux (b. Marseille, France) is a visual and media artist based in Montréal. His sculptural practice explores the relationship between cameras, perception, topology and space.

Working as a duo since 2016, their collaborative projects have been presented at artist-run centres, art museums and dance festivals in Canada, Belgium and the UK  including: Axenéo7, Gatineau, QC; Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown, PEI; Mois Multi Festival, Quebec City, QC; OFFTA Festival d’Arts Vivants, Montréal, QC; Tangente, Montréal, QC; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, QC; Musée d'Art Contemporaine des Laurentides, St. Jerome, QC; Sappyfest, Sackville, NB; Musée d'art de Joliette, Joliette, QC; Video // Play, Brussels, BE; Take me Somewhere Festival, Glasgow, UK.

To learn more about the artists: https://www.wendt-dufaux.com/

Image credit: Sarah Wendt + Pascal Dufaux. Detail of “The Mountain Moves While My Fingernails Grow” (2019). Digital photograph. Collection of the artists.