Description

Lit de Proust : En attendant un baiser / Proust’s Bed: Waiting for a Kiss is an installation including a daybed with a handmade paper cover with quotations from À la recherche du temps perdu in French and English integrated in the paper like a patchwork quilt. Placed on the wall and on the floor were two silkscreened images printed on round pieces of glass. The first was a close-up photograph taken by the artist of waves on the St-Lawrence River, the second was a photograph of the artist with her hands covering her face. A pillow and artist book were placed on the seat of a chair (or on a plinth for the Where Words Go exhibition). Similar to the bed, the pillow is made of paper and is inscribed with citations from À la recherche du temps perdu. The notebook is a journal of the artist’s thoughts written during the process of making the work.


Statement

This is a project about time and memory, about words, reading and writing. It is a project about my subjective response to Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, given who I am, where I live at this moment in time. It is also a project about patience and an obsession with words.

In creating the work, I first had the bed frame made and added a mattress. Then for the period of a year, I would move the bed from my studio to a shed behind my house for different periods of time, where I would sit on it reading À la recherche du temps perdu. As I read, I collected quotes that were later incorporated into the bed cover and pillow. All of the quotations from the book are about writing, words and the textile arts. Once I had read the full volume, I created the other elements in the work.

Lit de Proust : En attendant un baiser / Proust’s Bed: Waiting for a Kiss accentuates the isolation in which the novel was originally written. Proust spent much of his adult life bedridden with severe asthma, unable to go outside. The majority of his works were written in bed, in a room insulated from the outside world with cork. Proust believed in the power of art to transform human thought.

Karen Trask, 2024



Exhibition History

January 14 – February 13, 2010
Description

Where the Words Go brings together a series of sculptures, two-dimensional works and a video, which dissect and reassemble language and text in novel and unexpected ways. For example, one of the sculptures was created from spun paper pages from dictionaries.

Statement

Where the Words Go

Where do words come from? Could letters of the alphabet be seeds for planting? The image of a woman blowing on a dandelion seed has been part of the cover design of The Larousse Dictionary for many years. Since I was a child, I have sensed words and letters existing like a river or a current of air floating all around me.

In Où vont les mots, hundreds of dictionaries have been dismantled and transformed into a series of sculptures and one giant mural. Their printed papers were either torn and recycled into fresh sheets of paper or reconstituted through spinning into long paper threads. A desire to subvert the power and authority of certain types of written texts and to highlight the presence of the paper used in printing these texts were the starting points for this work.

One sentence describes the objective of much of my work: I want to touch words; I want to touch the space between words. My creative process has developed as a series of poetic investigations exploring human experience through language. A love-hate relationship to the written word was born out of loss. When I was 6 years old, my mother died in a car accident. Learning to read and to write coincided with death. This marked the beginning of a dialogue with absence, that I have been exploring, breathing, falling into and ultimately searching for words to describe. Paper, normally the invisible and ignored support material is one of the materials I use to create this presence of absence. My creative process includes researching the etymological roots of words and experimenting with early textile arts technologies such as spinning and weaving. Knowing the stories behind the evolution of words such as: text, (from textus meaning textile in Latin,) to spin, (to draw out of chaos, Latin,) stitch or suture (Sanskrit, word sutra, meaning thread and narrative scriptures) is an important part of this process.

« For over 20,000 years until the industrial revolution, the textile arts were an enormous economic force belonging primarily to women. Because of the perishability of these products, much of this contribution did not find its way into history books. Before writing became the principle means of communicating and recording information, clothing and textiles provided a place for social messages. » ( E. Wayland Barber, Women’s Work) The spinning in this project is a reminder of this contribution – a remembering through the fingers

In Où vont les mots, I am creating space for my own sculptural writing.

Karen Trask, 2010

D’où viennent les mots? Les lettres de l’alphabet pourraient-elles servir de semence? Depuis plusieurs années, la couverture du dictionnaire Larousse présente une femme soufflant sur un pissenlit en aigrettes. Enfant, je m’imaginais les mots existant comme une rivière invisible ou un courant d’air autour de moi.

Dans Où vont les mots, des centaines de dictionnaires sont démantelés et transformés en une série de sculptures ainsi qu’en une immense murale. Leurs pages imprimées sont ou bien déchirées en morceaux et recyclées en nouvelles feuilles de papier ou reconstituées en longs fils de papier par un processus de filage. Ce projet est fondé sur le désir de subvertir le pouvoir et l’autorité de certains types d’écrits et de souligner la présence du papier utilisé pour imprimer ces textes.

On peut décrire les objectifs d’une grande part de mon travail assez succinctement : je veux toucher les mots; je veux toucher l’espace entre les mots. Mon processus de création s’est élaboré par une série d’investigations poétiques explorant l’expérience humaine par le biais du langage. Le rapport d’amour-haine que j’entretiens avec les mots est né de la perte. Quand j’avais 6 ans, ma mère est morte dans un accident de voiture. Pour moi, apprendre à lire et à écrire coïncidait avec la mort. Ainsi commençait un dialogue avec l’absence, dialogue que j’explore, respire, sur lequel je trébuche, dans lequel je tombe – un dialogue pour lequel, finalement, je cherche des mots. En vue de rendre présente l’absence, j’utilise entre autres le papier – le support physique généralement oublié. Mon processus créatif fait appel à la recherche des racines étymologiques des mots et à l’expérimentation avec les anciennes technologies des arts textiles comme le filage et le tissage. Connaître l’histoire de l’évolution des mots contribue largement à ce processus; par exemple : texte (du latin textus qui signifie « textile »), filer (du bas latin filare, qui signifie « aligner, organiser en file »), suture (du mot sanscrit sutra, qui signifie à la fois « fil » et « texte sacré narratif »).

« Pendant plus de 20 000 ans et ce, jusqu’à la révolution industrielle, les arts textiles ont représenté une puissante force économique qui résidait principalement entre les mains des femmes. La nature périssable des produits de ces arts a fait en sorte que la grande part de leur contribution n’a pas été consignée dans les livres d’histoire. Avant que l’écriture ne devienne le principal mode de communication et de consignation d’information, les vêtements et le textile s’offraient comme support pour les messages sociaux » ( E. Wayland Barber, Women’s Work). Dans le présent projet, la présence du filage est un rappel de cette contribution – la mémoire au bout des doigts…

Avec Où vont les mots, je crée un espace pour mes propres écrits sculpturaux.

Karen Trask, 2010 | Traduction: François Nobert

Curator(s)
Charlotte Jones
Wordfield
solo
August 6 – September 13, 2009
Description

Wordfield regrouped several text-based paper sculptures.

Statement

Wordfield

As a young girl learning to read and to write, I imagined words and letters existing like a river or a current of air floating around me. The image of a woman blowing the seeds of a dandelion has always been central in the design of the front cover of The Larousse Dictionary. Letters of the alphabet as seeds and paper as a field for planting are ideas I explore in a series of works combining language and landscape.

The sculpture, Proust’s Bed: waiting for a kiss, is the result of a year-long project. Sitting in this specially constructed daybed, I read In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust. Quotations regarding sewing, loving and writing were collected and printed onto sheets of handmade paper. An impression of my body lieing on the bed was cast in paper. These papers were then assembled and sewn together in a pattern reminiscent of a crazy quilt and used to cover the mattresses of the bed.

Pages and covers from hundreds of dictionaries were recycled in the works, Where the words go, Portes and Wordfield. Some pages were torn and encorporated into sheets of hand-made paper for printing, while others were reconstituted through spinning into long paper threads. A desire to draw attention to the importance of paper was the starting point for these works.

My creative process has developed as a series of poetic investigations exploring human experience through language. A “fleshing” of words and the empty space around words is central in these investigations. In video, installation, artist books and performance, I attempt to touch words and the silence between words.

A love-hate relationship to the written word was born out of loss. When I was 6 years old, my mother died in a car accident. Learning to read and to write coincided with death. This marked the beginning of a dialogue with absence, that I have been exploring, breathing, falling into and ultimately searching for words to describe. Paper, normally the invisible and ignored support material is one of the materials I use to create this presence of absence. My creative process includes researching the etymological roots of words and experimenting with early textile arts technologies such as spinning and weaving. Knowing the history of words such as: text, (from textus meaning textile in Latin,) to spin, (to draw out of chaos, Latin,) stitch or suture (Sanskrit, word sutra, meaning thread and narrative scriptures) contributes to the understanding of these works.

« For over 20,000 years until the industrial revolution, the textile arts were an enormous economic force belonging primarily to women. Because of the perishability of these products, much of this contribution did not find its way into history books. Before writing became the principle means of communicating and recording information, clothing and textiles provided a place for social messages. » (E. Wayland Barber, Women’s Work) The spinning in this project is a reminder of this contribution – a remembering through the fingers

In the exhibition Wordfield, I create space for my own sculptural writing.

Karen Trask

2009

Curator(s)
Phil Irish
Description

Lit de Proust : En attendant un baiser / Proust’s Bed: Waiting for a Kiss is an installation and performance in a backyard shed accessed by the alley. The installation includes a daybed with a handmade paper cover with quotations from, À la recherche du temps perdu in French and English integrated like a patchwork quilt. Other items included in the installation: two silkscreened images on a round piece of glass, a pillow, an artist book placed on a chair and a long banner that hangs from the window into the alleyway below. For the performance, the artist cut pages from a volume of the 1976 Petit Larousse Illustré and spun each page into a paper thread which was wound into a ball.

Karen Trask began reading Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. Inspired by the conditions that led to the creation of this work, Trask decided to reinterpretand build, in a shed, the context, the room and the bed of Proust.

Source: Dare Dare website

Karen Trask s’est mise à la lecture d’À la recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust. En s’inspirant des conditions qui ont mené à la création de cette œuvre, Trask a décidé de réinterpréter et de construire, dans un hangar, le contexte, soit la chambre et le lit de Proust.

Source: Site web de Dare Dare

Statement

“[…] for, pinning a supplementary page in place here and there, I should construct my book, I don’t dare say, ambitiously, as if it were a cathedral, but simply as if it were a dress I was making.” Marcel Proust, Le temps retrouvé

“This is a project about time and memory, about words, reading and writing. It is a project about my subjective response to Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, given who I am, where I live at this moment in time. It is also a project about patience and an obsession with words.”

An exhibition such as this accentuates the isolation in which the work was originally created. Proust spent much of his adult life bedridden with severe asthma, unable to go outside. The majority of his works were written in bed, in a room insulated from the outside world with cork. Proust believed in the power of art to transform human thought.
Karen Trask presents her project in a backyard shed. The backyard is an intimate and private space in Montreal which often remains invisible and unknowable for both residents and neighbors. The shed is also an architectural characteristic of Montreal that is slowly being removed from the landscape. While discovering the multiple textures of Proust’s bed, the public will also discover an area which is an odd mixture of residences, textile factories, family furniture workshops and artist studios.

Source: Press Release, Dare-Dare, Centre de diffusion d’art multidisciplinaire de Montreal, 2006

«[…] épinglant ici un feuillet supplémentaire, je bâtirais mon livre, je n’ose pas dire ambitieusement comme une cathédrale, mais tout simplement comme une robe.» M. Proust, Le temps retrouvé

«Voici un projet sur le temps et la mémoire, sur les mots, la lecture et l’écriture. C’est une réponse personnelle à Marcel Proust et À la recherche du temps perdu en lien avec qui je suis, où j’habite et l’époque dans laquelle je vis. Ce projet traite de la patience et de mon obsession des mots.»

Karen Trask s’est mise à la lecture d’À la recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust. En s’inspirant des conditions qui ont mené à la création de cette œuvre, Trask a décidé de réinterpréter et de construire, dans un hangar, le contexte, soit la chambre et le lit de Proust. Dans ce hangar, elle confectionne divers papiers, sur lesquels elle appose des mots, des phrases récupérés ou inspirés de l’auteur. Le public accède au lit de Proust par la ruelle qui débouche sur un jardin. Il y trouve la pièce et l’artiste qui l’accueille en plein travail, en pleine lecture ou en plein repos.

Ce projet veut accentuer l’isolement dans lequel l’œuvre de Proust a été créée, alors qu’il était alité pour cause de maladie. Également, le projet fait découvrir le hangar, espèce en voie de disparition, et la cour arrière montréalaise, cet espace intime et privé propre à la ville en le replaçant dans un quartier à zonage mixte, où se côtoient maison unifamilale et édifice industriel, usine et ateliers d’artistes.

«Créer pour moi est né d’un besoin de comprendre et d’approfondir mes expériences personnelles et oniriques. Ces références sont souvent les points de départ dans la réalisation de mes œuvres. L’écriture est un outil important qui me permet de me réinventer de façon à renouveler et à transformer mon quotidien d’artiste et d’individu. Cette écriture est présente autant à l’intérieur de mon processus de création que dans l’œuvre finale.»

Source : communique de presse, Dare-Dare, centre de diffusion d’art multidisciplinaire de Montréal, 2006


Publications

Where the Words Go : Karen Trask
Nancy Ring & Charlotte Jones (2010). Jones, Charlotte; Ring, Nancy. Where the Words Go : Karen Trask. Corner Brook, Nfld: Sir Wilfred Grenfell College Art Gallery Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2010.

Exhibition catalogue for “Where The Words Go” (2010).

Renouer le dialogue
Françoise Belu (2008). Spirale, Numéro 221, juillet–août 2008, p. 8–10.
Sculpter les mots
Serge Fisette (2007). Espace Sculpture, Vol.78 Winter 2006-2007 pages 16 and 22

Sculpter les mots, le langage, les mettre en espace is a look at some artists projects about words and text in space with a description of the work, Lit de Proust : en attente d’un baiser.