Seance Fiction

May 2 - August 9, 2015 at Walter Phillips Gallery

Artists: Hannah Doerksen, Maggie Groat, Tamar Guimarães with Kasper Akhøj, Soda_Jerk, Guy Maddin, Heather and Ivan Morison, Shana Moulton

Curator: Peta Rake

Séance Fiction is a term that exists as an imagined proposition. Perhaps it is from a guide book to some future, not yet realized, a resurrected catalogue, or a dictionary entry hidden invisible between other 'see also' terms; such as séance, science-fiction, speculative fiction, hauntology, alternate-history or future-history. In the context of this exhibition the term séance fiction suggests the way in which artists act as mediums to the past and future. By inserting themselves into histories that are elastic, the artists included speculate on the future in a way that complicates our understanding of the present.

This exhibition is not specifically concerned with science fiction or how it is referenced by artists, but rather how the principles of science fiction are embodied within contemporary art. Nor is it exclusive to this particular embodiment, as the term séance fiction also brings together a quartet of temporalities. These include 'séance', the summoning of the past; 'fiction', something feigned or imagined; 'science-fiction', the genre of literature dedicated to the imaginary of future scenarios. Finally, Séance Fiction is concerned with the interstice between, the present.