This Time Will Be Different
A performance-based installation
An intergenerational ceremony to celebrate Indigenous beauty and survival. A broadside aimed at the Canadian government as it continues to perpetuate the status quo to the detriment of Indigenous peoples, this installation-performance by Lara Kramer and Émilie Monnet portrays their strength and resilience. A response to constantly broken promises.
A child rips up, one by one, the 600 pages of the report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, as his grandmother, the visual artist Glenna Matoush, a survivor of the residential school system, looks on. Red paint, glue, jingling coins. The two artists consulted other members of their community, listening as they told their heartrending stories. With the slowness of a collective ritual, This Time Will Be Different creates a space for dialogue and for listening. An offering of space where stories are not set pieces written in books, but are exchanges of gestures and actions, bodies and souls engaged in a healing process, a place where people come together.
Co-produced by Festival TransAmériques
With the support of Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec + Conseil des arts de Montreal
Creative Residencies Studio 303 + MAI + Foundry Darling + Centre de Création O Vertigo
Presented in association with Monument-National
Written by Elsa Pépin
Translated by Neil Kroetsch
Premiered at Festival TransAmériques, Montreal, on June 1, 2019
