We hope for light so much that sometimes we get burned for coming too close to our dreams. As for darkness, it can represent both a refuge and the place where we encounter our demons, both that which brings us comfort and that which frightens us. We are too well adapted to our everyday life and the banality and inevitability it contains—let’s rouse our gardens, unconscious from neglect and from being trampled on so long, let’s listen to what the overflowing rivers have to say. We must recreate a whole world, piece by piece, pay attention to every leaf on every plant and every feather on every bird, do everything it takes to re-establish contact with them and with ourselves. By observing in ourselves all that is gentle and all that is violent alike, we’ll know how to burn the ancient parts of what we are, or level them to make space for unexpected images.

Our and everything it takes programming looks into the forces and resources that drive us and what, within and outside of ourselves, might equally prove to be a potentiality or a menace. As part of our alliance with the new Wendat artist-run centre Ahkwayaonhkeh, VU has brought together artists and artworks that revisit the zones of light and shadow that make us what we are in order to glimpse what we can become, individually and collectively. Actions carried out in our production and gallery spaces, and more widely on the Nionwentsïo that welcomes us, will allow vital energies to reveal themselves and contribute to the creation of new alliances.