A catalogue without images

The exhibition featured 34 artists: Vikky Alexander, Trevor Baird, Thomas Bégin, Simon Belleau, Scott Benesiinaabandan, Sandeep Bhagwati, Jacques Bilodeau, Rosika Desnoyers, Mara Eagle, Surabhi Ghosh, Carla Hemlock, Kristan Horton, Sheena Hoszko, Isuma, Kelly Jazvac, Suzanne Kite, Moridja Kitenge Banza, Karen Kraven, Marlon Kroll, Nicolas Lachance, Yen-Chao Lin, Anne Low, Luanne Martineau, Manuel Mathieu, N.E. Thing Co., Jérôme Nadeau, Isabelle Pauwels, Guillaume Adjutor Provost, Walter Scott, Erin Shirreff, Eve Tagny, Samuel Walker, Nico Williams, and Thea Yabut. 

The challenge involved creating a catalogue for such a large and diverse group that does justice to each artist’s contribution. Further, a “catalogue without images” had to be designed and created while the works were still in production. Each artist was allocated four pages—one page of text and three pages of full-bleed images—to ensure equal representation while providing a structure to support the many different paper stocks the book required. The curators’ software, SketchUp, provided a clear picture of the works and their location so that we could accurately plan the exhibition’s photographic documentation—a crucial step to ensure images could be harmoniously integrated into the layout as soon as they were produced.

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A material language

The exhibition title refers to the serinette, a small mechanical barrel organ used to teach birds tunes, an aristocratic amusement in 18th-century Europe. The leitmotif of bodily learning through repetition is further embedded in the physicality of the catalogue: a rhythm is transmitted to the reader’s hands through the regular changes in the paper and marked by inserts featuring short texts by nine authors. Through its material language, the catalogue questions the primacy of sight as a sense for apprehending and interpreting the world. The relationship to representation is also explored through books within the book (the “Readings” inserts), fake books within the book (the curators’ texts and Krista Lynes’ essay), and facsimiles within the book (the texts gathered by Raymond Boisjoly in the “Facsimile” booklet). These structural strategies give the book its daring, uncanonical form.