Caroline Monnet: Grounding the Invisible

Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe-French) uses visual and media arts to address complex ideas around Indigenous identity and bicultural living. For her solo exhibition at the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage (CIAPV), the Montréal-based artist presents installations, sculpture and film in dialogue with the site and broader questions of territory. Drawing on the island setting of Vassivière, certain works evoke water, from a monumental sculpture of an icosahedron to more fluid representations that speak to movement, light and the transformational power of water. Juxtaposing Anishinaabe, western and natural geometries, Monnet proposes Indigenous futures grounded in resilience, advancement and joy.

Monnet has developed a distinct aesthetic vocabulary that inscribes traditional Anishinaabe motifs and cultural practices within contemporary forms. Working with basic construction materials, such as vapour barriers, foam insulation and plywood, the artist transforms raw elements of the built environment into an architectural language embedded with Indigenous identity.

In Grounding the Invisible, a series of modular cast sculptures that evoke cinder blocks are arranged as a construction-in-process. Here, the ubiquity and roughness of the concrete masonry units are transformed through the application of geometric Anishinaabe motifs that form the negative spaces of the blocks. Assembled in various configurations, the blocks create larger geometric planes and structures throughout the room, suggesting a space rife with potential for activation and participation.

The creation of architectural or sculptural volumes within space are, for the artist, akin to imposing one’s presence: a taking up of space that affirms the long-denied place of Indigenous peoples within the fabric of society.

Monnet’s geometric vocabulary takes on three-dimensional volume with a monumental sculpture of an icosahedron. The twenty-sided shape is one of the five Platonic solids, regular polyhedra named for the Greek philosopher, who associated four of them with the elements earth, air, water and fire, and considered them to make up all matter in the universe. The fifth regular polyhedron, the dodecahedron, was associated with the cosmos. Taken together, the Platonic solids were considered to form a comprehensive theory of the universe.

Monnet’s icosahedron is made of Douglas fir, a non-native species in France that is planted widely in the region for lumber. Through its material, the sculpture evokes contemporary resource extraction and the industrialization of forests, which act, in the way of the classical conception of the Platonic solids, as structuring elements of the surrounding region.

In a further exploration of geometric volumes, two polyhedra are formed by multiple hemp ropes spanning the exhibition space and meeting at their apex. Fastened with nautical knots, the ropes echo and expand the square shape of a window that looks onto Vassivière lake and the hydroelectric dam that is its point of origin.

Monnet’s installation is inspired partly by the geometry of a traditional Algonquin dreamcatcher. Suspended near an infant’s cradle, the circular form is handwoven with a net or web-like shape that ensnares bad dreams and spirits while allowing good ones to pass through. Here, the flat plane of the dreamcatcher is extrapolated outwards into two pyramids, as if receiving as well as transmitting. Held in tension across the space, the pyramids seem to vibrate and resonate outwards. The resulting pure geometric forms frame and focus our perspective, creating a series of lines that converge around the window, landscape and horizon beyond.

Geometry has often been used as an instrument to delimit a landscape and thus to know, possess and dominate it. This relationship to the natural world runs counter to Anishinaabe philosophy, in which humans are not owners of the land but are seen as belonging to it. In Monnet’s works, geometry becomes a generative rather than a reductive tool, one which can shape form and space, as well as our perceptions of the latter. With the introduction of Anishinaabe motifs, the artist proposes a re-enchantment of geometry, once considered the sacred generator of all things, thus endowing landscape and our relationship to it with connections to a more-than-human world.

The exhibition is curated by Alexandra McIntosh, Director, CIAPV, and is presented with the support of the Délégation générale du Québec à Paris.

About the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage
Unique within the French artistic landscape, the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage on Vassivière Island (CIAPV) is celebrated for its remarkable architecture designed by Aldo Rossi and Xavier Fabre, its open-air permanent collection, and its program of exhibitions, residencies and events exploring contemporary art and landscape. Situated on the Plateau de Millevaches in the Limousin region, the CIAPV is firmly rooted in its rural context while forging links nationally and internationally.

The CIAPV is supported by the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the French Ministry of Culture—DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine.