Second Sight
1988 – 1991
Second Sight
mixed media slide installation
1988
Miriam Fabijan investigates the course of memory as it endures the present. She is not drawn to a nostalgic view of the past; rather she questions the authenticity of historical evidence in the telling of herstory. Fabijan is influenced by feminist literary critique and its analysis of the depiction of women in traditional fiction, particularly as written by authors initiating a reclamation of women’s experience. Ancestral souvenirs facilitate glimpses into previous eras …
Second Sight invites the viewer into a space furnished with an antique portrait in a heavy frame, a patterned floor and a cabinet with glass. The dim lighting, monochromatic shades and period flavours of the movables creates a romantic impression. Encouraging identification and reminiscence, Fabijan’s mise en scene connotes a sense of place and moment.
Donna McAlear, Curator (catalogue excerpt)
Second Sight
floor detail Photocopies of worn down tiles indicating a continuous pacing back and forth. If the viewer follows the floors path they will cause the two projected portrait images to dissolve from one to the other.
portrait detail
(overlaid slide projections)
“And the lady of the house was seen only as she appeared in each room according to the nature of the lord of the room. None saw the whole of her, none but herself. For the light which she was was both her mirror and her body. None could tell the whole of her, none but herself.”
Inconstancy (alternative fictions)
Portraits of my maternal grandmother, circa 1942; one a studio portrait, the other isolated from a family portrait.
1988
“These two pictures, disjointed and disconnected and nonsensical as they were, were for ever coming together and combating each other and had me entirely at their mercy.”
Replica
A replica of my maternal grandmother’s dress, circa 1942,
as described and remembered by my mother, her daughter, 50 years later.
1991
Mama
pen on tissue paper
portrait in three parts (diminishing)
1991
“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I how it is worse perhaps to be locked in …”
video installation
1988
These works were undertaken with the generous support of Alberta Culture.
Group Exhibitions
1992
Day, Fabijan, Jolicoeur (Voies/Voix ou L’identité et la question du sujet en art). Galerie l’Oeuvre de l’Autre, Chicoutimi, Canada
1989
Elemental Instincts: a matter of course. Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, Canada
Catalogue
1990
Elemental Instincts: a matter of course. Donna McAlear, curator and author. Nickel Arts Museum, Calgary, Canada
PRESENTATION
1992
Conference Panelist. Voies/Voix ou l’identité et la question du sujet en art. Galerie l’Ouevre de l’Autre, Université du Quebec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi, Canada