REMA HORT MANN FOUNDATION

Genesis Belanger

I am interested first in history- then in art history, and how an understanding of history puts the present into perspective.
I find it really hard to look at the social
ills of today and accept them as resulting from “my” history. This history we are asked to share was predominately constructed by an elite group of individuals.
 
I make work that engages in a conversation about this present and its relationship to a past that most of us would not have had the privilege to shape. I am interested in the ethical questions that are at the core of what it means to be a person sharing a confrontational relationship to the past. Specifically I am looking at injustice, greed and idealism. I approach these questions and this conversations with a sense of humor: here we are, this is our f’ed up unfair present, and
we might as well see it as funny.
 
Most recently I have been working in ceramics, hand building handsome jokes about the absurdity of the patriarchy in a material that lasts forever. Visually, I find the illogical to be elegant and beautiful. I have collected trash from the streets outside my studio and constructed architectural models littered with
miniature billboards that are the refuse of their larger brothers intention, the end becomes the beginning. In an other project I visited vortex sights.
 
These are places where the tectonic plates are said to be misaligned allowing us to feel the magnetic pull from the core of the earth. Along side this natural phenomena exists an advantageous commercial culture selling promises of spiritual renewal. I collected rocks from the sites and built gumball machines referencing the coin operated vendors you see outside grocery stores and laundromats.
 
All of my diverse projects share a common thread; I believe strongly in the ability of
the visual to tell the deeply complicated and nuanced stories of our specific point in time.