Catalogue Spotlight: September 2026

The Persistence of Memory

Hello VP Website and Newsletter readers,

In Andre Breton's Surrealist Manifesto, Breton describes memory as an antagonist to dreams. He characterizes man as a “play-thing” to his memory during waking hours, separated from “the marvellous,” an uncanny state between dreaming and waking with ties to the creative unconscious.

However, not all artists who play with a surreal aesthetic view memory as an antagonist to dreaming or creativity. Instead, they explore memory as a storyteller, or unreliable narrator, drawing attention to its fragility as it shifts and ultimately decays.

This spotlight showcases works that utilize dreamlike and uncanny aesthetics to explore the beauty and fragility of memory.

Where does the memory end and the dream begin?

See you next time,

- Jo Reimer, Collections and Distribution Assistant

milkteeth by Melissa Johns, 2015

milkteeth is an investigation into the imperfection of memory and attempts at preserving the ephemeral. A collaboration with a dancer and a sound artist, milkteeth’s aim is to craft and deconstruct an intimate visual experience. Using stereoscopy and glitch techniques to mimic corrupt data and destabilization, video fragmentation becomes analogous to the physical process of forgetting.

Spirit of Abstruse Lizards by Ekene Emeka-Maduka, 2023(opens in new tab)

The Spirit of Abstruse Lizards is a ﬁction-satire set in a world where conch shells (relics with such long life) transmit phone calls and; liars grow noses like Pinocchio. This work combines Western ﬁction with Igbo folklore, entangled in lies, as with colonial inﬂuence, interference, the crossing of cultures, and alteration: Things that progress for better or worse.

Don’t Go Away by Christine Kirouac, 2011

From celebration to squabbles, food serves as a microcosm for the push/pull of family dynamics. Coming from a passionate French-Canadian restaurant family, Kirouac’s experiences of familal relations have been continually filtered through the ubiquitous, yet intimate, act of cooking. In Don’t Go Away, Kirouac combines these histories and emotions into a mediated conversation with her deceased father “Fernie”. From 1976-78, Fernand (Fernie) Kirouac co-hosted (with George Knight) “Charcoal Chiefs” - one of the first televised cooking shows on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Television. Long before the days of stage sets, pre-cooked conclusions and digital polish, Fernie and Knight demonstrated barbecue cooking techniques on location in a Winnipeg park. Fernie passed away in 1990, leaving behind one episode in the CBC archives. Decades later, Kirouac re-formulates the footage to meet her adopted father at an intersection between analogue and digital. She hired two actors to “play” her, while she played Knight opposite her own father via split-screen. As dishes are prepared, moments of seamless connection are interspersed with collapse and fragmentation as power shifts back and forth between an experienced chef and his younger assistant(s). As the daughter vies back and forth with her father, we are witness to the vulnerability, humour, discomfort, endearment and even underlying antagonism typical in all of our families.

If you're interested in inquiring about bringing your work into our catalogue please contact madeline@videopool.org