Exercice de conversation [Conversation exercise] — Exhibition

Exercice de conversation [Conversation exercise] is a triptych by the artist Sandra Lachance, inspired by a series of workshops with French-language students from the Carrefour d’Intercultures de Laval during the winter of 2020. These photographic tableaux are based on the creative explorations made  during the workshops, where each participant reappropriated the genre of the self-portrait by combining images of their body and their own writing.

The uncertain and incomplete or hand-made nature of Sandra Lachance’s portraits are like a scribble—an action that is conscious of its limitations, something that was discussed during the workshop. An urgent gesture that evokes innocence and incapacity while also communicating desire, scribbling asserts an precarious identity that is still being formed. Being is a fluctuating state: between all or nothing, here and there.

Learning a language means opening oneself to different sounds, rhythms and shapes of speech. Faced with endless memorization and new signifiers, writing becomes a labyrinth of translations and interpretations that are also carried in the body. I name myself with new words. I articulate a form that carries my voice. Through this process of necessary mistakes, of repeated trials and errors, the outlines of a transformation emerge: who we are, were, and are becoming.

These modified portraits offer a glimpse into an encounter, a conversation exercise we must all complete to become better.