So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing, is an exhibition by Pavitra Wickramasinghe and Shahir Krishna. Both artists engage with discourses on migration and identity, exploring notions of transformation in their work. While Pavitra focuses on the sky and water, Shahir explores their body in relation to the earth. Through embodied performance and sculpture, this exhibition explores the different ways in which both artists inhabit space and place.

Pavitra’s work is mainly concerned with new ways of conceptualizing the moving image and exploring conventions of seeing. Her current body of work draws from ideas around a sense of place and locale, exploring notions of traveling, memory, and what it means to be here. For the past few years, she has been gathering footage of boats that are left immobile; sites of potential voyage made static. As a symbol of migration, a boat, capsized on land or frozen in place, is revealed as an unsettling site through Pavitra's depictions. Complementary to KENO/KINO, is the sculptural piece Models of Comets. Always in motion, comets transform when they interact with different atmospheres. Both of Pavitra’s works explore the science of movement; the contradictory feeling of being both static and in motion, relating to a sense of place.

sankharas is a sculptural movement piece about change, and the constant decay of the “self” when one surrenders to nature. Krishna was inspired by a silent 10-day Vipassana Meditation, where they was surrounded by monstrous tree sages covered in fungus, rotting bark, moss, insects, spiderwebs, raindrops, and floating caterpillars constantly shifting, melting and dying at various paces. Utilizing found materials from the forest where they meditated to create a textile piece, combined with Butoh style of dance, sankharas reflects on the relationship between the embodied self and the external factors that shape human existence through movement and stasis.

Sound by Nelly-Eve Rajotte
KENO/KINO was made possible by Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Canada Council for the Arts. Pavitra would also like to thank Dan Sokolowski, Nicole Lynn Rayburn and Jonathan Villeneuve.

Pavitra Wickramasinghe is a multidisciplinary artist mainly concerned with new ways of conceptualizing the moving image. Her current work is an exploration of notions of traveling, fluidity of place and memory. Selected exhibitions include: SIGHTINGS, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Montréal), Yeosu International Art Festival (South Korea), Cable Factory (Finland), Stuttgart Filmwinter (Germany) and Centro Cultural del Matadero (Spain) among others. She is a recipient of numerous residencies, awards and grants including, Art Omi (NY), La Chambre Blanche (Québec), Pépinières Européennes pour jeunes artistes, (Spain), National Museum of Contemporary Art (South Korea), and The Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art.

Shahir Krishna is an interdisciplinary artist currently working in textile and costume design. Their art explores the schism that is created when existing within a diaspora, weaving together moments of historical psychosis with delicately textured ephemera to create new realms of spiritual possibility for the queer soul. Their/Her inspiration wades in opalescent silver swamps, perfumed by gender torment, romantic hallucination, karmic law and the mythical creatures lounging beneath the ruins of utopia. In this life, Shahir is a diasporic/queer/transgender/indian/malawian/canadian entity.