Over the past two years, office spaces have been deserted in favour of remote work. Soon, many saw some advantages:
No more blazers and pants
No more hurried morning preparations
No more hours spent in public transport answering office emails on a volunteer basis
No more embarrassing tummy rumbles while waiting impatiently for dinner
No more guilt over yet another forgotten lunch that is replaced by a mediocre Subway
…
Nevertheless, as many have noted, these advantages are accompanied by a confusion between personal and professional life, an intensification of work and a certain social isolation. Finally, we miss that colleague who made coffee for everyone at 1:30 p.m.

The installation Mort au Bureau is the result of an intensive creative residency carried out at Sporobole, whose premises emerge from a feeling oscillating between joy and despair raised by the potential return to work in the office. Through a staging of festive colours, various sculptures made from objects and furniture emblematic of work spaces are tested for their resistance under the abrupt repetition of motorized movements. An overturned desk, a trash can spinning on itself, an array of post-it notes activated by motors spinning in all directions, are some of the suitable elements for this exploration.

The – kinetic, sonic and connected – project is thus presented in two places at the same time, divided into two parts: on the one hand the installation which occupies the gallery of Sporobole, in Sherbrooke; and, on the other hand, the one that is presented at Eastern Bloc, in Montreal. This delocalization is, moreover, linked with the help of a surveillance camera, installed in the gallery of Sporobole. The disarticulated choreography that takes place in Sherbrooke is transmitted live via a desktop computer, being a key element of the installation located in Montreal where, on both sides of the work table and on the wall, objects and furniture specific to office spaces are also animated and degraded.

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Bio

Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne creates imprecise kinetic and sonic works that, in so doing, put their own structure to the test. Despite the precariousness of their assembly, her creations are conceived with the intention of generating forms with poetic echoes, in a transitory state that lies between creation and destruction. She holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in visual and media arts from Université Laval. Her work has been presented in several international exhibitions and contemporary art festivals and in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Quebec.