CREDOS IV
Credos IV is a book-as-exhibition, the fourth in an ongoing series of displays of artworks that elaborate on notions of belief (see below). It was launched February 3rd, 2022 at articule artist run centre.
The 5 inch by 8 inch books are 150 pages in black and white with colour inserts. Each comes with handmade hardwood frames, individually covered in textile, which the books can easily slip in and out of (back and front covers offering different choices of image by the painter Mina Hedayat). Credos IV can be hung on a nail or fit on a shelf, and look nice on their own or in clusters. They come in a numbered edition of 200.
With contributions from Lea Cetera, Mina Hedayat, Craig Leonard & Michael Fernandes, Jones Miller, Pak Sheung Chuen, Jeanne Randolph, Alessandro Rolandi, Jamie Ross, and others.
They are priced at $30 and can be found at the following locations, with more distributors forthcoming:
Articule (Montreal)
Art Metropole (Toronto)
Axenéo7 (Gatineau)
Canadian Centre for Architecture bookstore (Montreal)
La Fonderie Darling (Montreal)
Librairie le Port de Tête (Montreal)
Verticale — centre d’artistes (Laval)
Credos is a series of exhibitions that started off as table-top group mini-exhibitions conceived for church-basement bazaars in Laval and Greater Montreal throughout 2019–20. The first two editions took place in different Armenian congregations in Laval. When the COVID-19 pandemic put subsequent Québec editions on hold, a version was transported to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and shown in the frame of the all-day public art festival “Art in the Open” in 2020. An 8-hour online radio program was broadcast alongside the tabletop displays.
Credos IV is also a response to social distance, but at the same time a furthering of an inquiry into the substitutions and translations of an exhibition into non-gallery spaces.
See more about previous editions here.
published Ferbuary 17th, 2022
The third edition of
Credos took place on August 29th, 2020 as part of
Art in the Open in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and supported by
Verticale. It featured the work of Lea Cetera, Michael Eddy, Cliff Eyland, Michael Fernandes & Craig Leonard, Mina Hedayat, Asako Iwama & Derrick Wang and Sean Lynch.
Credos is an ongoing exploration into the spiritual searching that emerges through artistic practices. It began as a series of tabletop presentations of art works and discussions in church bazaars in Laval, Quebec. The invited participants are artists and writers whose work has engaged with belief in various ways, many of whom have dealt with their own personal experiences of organized religions, without staging a rejection or a celebration. Rather, there is a translation process involved.
See more about Credos
here.
This edition also featured Credos Radio, an accompanying live 8-hour radio program, playing on a speaker as part of the installation in the plaza next to the Confederation Centre, as well as streaming online.
Or stream below:
photos by Elizabeth Wendt.
published September 30th, 2020
This is a project of table top exhibitions held in church bazaars. The invited participants are artists and writers whose work has engaged with belief in various ways. Many of them have dealt with their own personal experiences of organized religions, but without staging a rejection or a celebration. Rather, there is a translation process involved.
The desire to hold these 2- or 3-person table top exhibitions in bazaars stems from a project I had organized with others at HomeShop, which was a series of interventions in the Farmers Market in Beijing called “True and False”. In Montreal, I felt the church bazaars held a similar potential for art works to rub against and settle beside a variety of other value scales. Of course, there are diverse publics, the most basic of types being those who are there for the church and those who show up primarily for the art. However, in either case, the work is discussed and introduced by the presenters, and so a negotiation has already started. There is a plurality of entry points in the selected works, and so interactions over the table can be unpredictable and yet down to earth.
This project remains unfinished. Its first two iterations took place in cooperation with the artist-run centre Verticale in the city of Laval, Québec in November 2019. The next two iterations were planned for April and May 2020, with Verticale again, and with articule artist-run centre. The series has not been cancelled, but is on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Though all art exhibitions, as well as any other social activity, are and will be affected by the outbreak, it seemed poignant to think about the depth of this crisis for religious and spiritual gatherings. Churches and many other places of worship serve an older demographic that is especially vulnerable to the worst of the coronavirus. So it may take a while, or may take a different form, to finally realize this project.
Stay tuned…
The first edition of Credos was held on the first weekend of November 2019 at the Armenian Evangelical Church of Montreal in Laval. On display were:
Opioid Wall Book by Cliff Eyland (drawings)
non-visible by Asako Iwama and Derrick Wang (video)
Stretching Exercises by Michael Fernandes and Craig Leonard (book)
Visitors were invited to contribute a translation of the instruction poetry in Stretching Exercises.
The second edition of Credos was held on the last weekend of November 2019 at the Armenian Community Centre of Laval. On display were:
Earrings by Mina Hedayat (wearable objects)
Painting Hijabs by Mina Hedayat (paintings)
Plant Hijabs by Mina Hedayat (sculpture)
Stretching Exercises by Michael Fernandes and Craig Leonard (book)
A presentation by Michael Eddy on the origins of the Credos project.
A lecture by Vincent Bonin on the work and life of Michel Journiac.
See more at Credos 3
