Vestiges and Remains
March 11th - April 23rd, 2022
This project was made possible with the generous support of the WindsorEssex Community Foundation.
Vestiges and Remains works with archival matter at Artcite Inc., to engage community memory and the hauntings of labour, to expand the narratives and traces within the wide pools of knowledge invited by communities and temporalities. Vestiges and Remains convergence of archives, parafiction and invitational programming, allows audiences to bring their own memories, histories and conversations into Artcite’s gallery and archives.
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Morris Fox
Morris Fox is a queer artist and new gothicc writer. His work tongues & cruises the haunted house for feelings of Elysium. Words are a net—anything that serves to catch or ensnare—are a necropolis, a dead person city, a cemetery of desire. He remains in "Canada" and online.
Morris Fox (he/him) is a Canadian artist, writer and educator, born in Tkaronto (1984). He graduated from the Low Residency MFA program at SAIC in 2018. Fox’s work manifests primarily in performance, textiles, video and writing. His influences include Stephen Andrews, Joyelle Mcsweeney, Skawennati, Peter Carpenter. Recently Fox performed in VR as a bat for Claudia Hart’s Ludicity (Hyphen Hubs, Mozilla Hubs 2021), created digital avatars and virtual environments for Gothwerk Revelations, curated by Maggie Wong, in Hotwheelz Festival (Chicago, 2020), worked as the textile intern for The Icelandic Textile Centre (Blönduós, 2020), and was curated by Jordan Olivia Turk in An Archive of Feelings (Randolph, VT, 2019). His upcoming show Vestiges and Remains at Artcite (Windsor, ON, 2022) will explore the haunted temperature of archives, community memories and the ghosts of labour. He has exhibited in Canada, The United States of America and Iceland.
Notes from the Exhibition Programmer
“The concept behind the exhibition Vestiges and Remains, is to blur past/present/future, archives and fiction, in order to explore our understandings of memory and discover the nuances and perceptions of the histories that exist within creative spaces like Artcite Inc.. The exhibition traces the narratives of community formation, recalls how we form memories and engage with each other within art spaces through time. These shifts in public perception remind us that cultural centres are not fixed, but instead are always in flux. Archives are more than just records, they are emotive and in a process of becoming.”
- Morris Fox
Memento Workshop
& Artist Talk
Artist Morris Fox welcomes participants to consider the feelings and memories that are attached to objects in our lives in a workshop that invites the excitement of a show-n-tell with an artist talk, to engage with the lyrical potential of objects. Fox asks, can we think and feel deeper about objects, souvenirs and heirlooms, both every day and precious? How can we navigate space through feeling? The workshop provides a structure of curiosity for storytelling, writing and drawing, allowing participants to dive deeper into their personal archives, to find the supernatural in the mundane, and to craft poetic text, drawings, and/or collages reimagining personal histories, archives and memory.
"This napkin reminds me of staying at my grandma’s or aunt’s apartments, suddenly feeling inspired to write as I compare my life back home. The object is an attempt to record the impact of seeing my family abroad, an immaterial and temporary experience." - Michelle C. (Napkin with notes from family visit in Poland)
"The emotion I feel when I am engaging with this object is a calming, loving emotion that centres, grounds, and revitalizes my soul. It sends a reassurance that signifies strength and determination. A newness of tranquility emerges from deep within. I am a free spirit and able to transcend both time and space. Energetically I am alive and well. I am cleansed with a youthful state of mind that washes the very essence of life that I breath. My vessel has been renewed and sanctified." - Briana B. (Lemurian Seed Crystal)
"I really enjoyed this workshop, it was interesting to hear others histories and personal attachments to objects and how those memories enliven the objects that they chose for the workshop. It was a pleasure to hear and see people's reactions to the questions that were posed and to the thoughts that were occurring around the chosen objects, and to hear Morris speak on his work and the programming that he is engaged with Artcite on. This workshop has inspired me to think on the objects in my life through a responsive lens rather than a a normative passive one." - Ostoro P. (Artwork inspired by inherited knife)
A Testimony to the Archives
By Grace Taylor
“The space gave me the chance to organize history, putting all the puzzle pieces I could find into place”
