Toronto-based artist Sara Angelucci used photography, video, audio and performance to explore themes of memory, conventions of image making and “the cultural role vernacular images play in framing particular stories, histories, and memorialization.”
An unattributed photograph the artist purchased on eBay served as the starting point for this immersive multi-media installation. The identities of the subjects in the photograph remain unknown, as does the photographer. In response, Angelucci created a meditation on the nature of photography asking viewers to “consider the dichotomous nature of a photograph” as an object that is “at once a mere piece of paper, and yet at the same time a precious document which holds someone’s image, and might be the only one in existence.” The Anonymous Chorus functioned as an attempt to situate a photograph within a living space, one that positions the act of remembering against the act of forgetting.
Sara Angelucci completed her BA at the University of Guelph and her MFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has exhibited her photography across Canada in solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of York University, Le Mois de la Photo in Montreal, Vu in Quebec City, the Toronto Photographers Workshop, the MacLaren Art Centre, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Richmond Art Gallery, and the St. Mary’s University Art Gallery in Halifax. Internationally she has had solo exhibitions at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, The Lianzhou Photo Festival in China and the Hasley Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina. Her work has been featured in numerous group shows in the US, Europe, and in China at the Pingyao and Beijing Biennales. Her videos have been screened across Canada and abroad, at festivals in Europe, China, Australia and the U.S. She has participated in artist residencies at the Art Gallery of Ontario, NSCAD (Halifax), the Banff Centre, and at Biz-Art in Shanghai.
Banner: Sara Angelucci, The Anonymous Chorus, 2013. Video still. Courtesy of the artist.
