Manuel Mathieu: Liberations
Liberations is a program of recent video and film works by Haitian-Canadian artist Manuel Mathieu. His films are a poetic exploration of political revolt, spiritual resilience, intergenerational legacies, and movement. In DIFE (2024), translating to 鈥榝ire鈥� in Creole, Mathieu documents scenes from demonstrations led by protesters in Port-au-Prince over the last three years. Informed by the artist鈥檚 upbringing in Haiti, this video brings attention to the effects of enduring socio-political and economic instability in Haiti and the ongoing struggle against forced US-led foreign intervention. As in many uprisings, fire plays a significant role in communicating dissent during a collective awakening. In Mathieu鈥檚 work, the flame can also symbolize the spiritual and material potential for liberation. In Unity in Darkness (2023), fire is explored through the intimate exchange of two matchsticks keeping each other鈥檚 flames alight. The two flames fuse into one against a dimly-lit space, meditating on the entanglement of our humanity and our shared futures. In the award-winning short film, Pendulum (2023), Mathieu contemplates the fraught legacies of transatlantic violence on the body, labour, power, and dreams of freedom. Pendulum presents a potent spiritual choreography between a matriarchal knowledge keeper and a group of men. The film鈥檚 visceral and rhythmic movement reflects a lurching and cyclical experience of time鈥攁lternating between feelings of tension and release between the past and future.
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Liberations is a program of recent video and film works by Haitian-Canadian artist Manuel Mathieu. His films are a poetic exploration of political revolt, spiritual resilience, intergenerational legacies, and movement. In DIFE (2024), translating to 鈥榝ire鈥� in Creole, Mathieu documents scenes from demonstrations led by protesters in Port-au-Prince over the last three years. Informed by the artist鈥檚 upbringing in Haiti, this video brings attention to the effects of enduring socio-political and economic instability in Haiti and the ongoing struggle against forced US-led foreign intervention. As in many uprisings, fire plays a significant role in communicating dissent during a collective awakening. In Mathieu鈥檚 work, the flame can also symbolize the spiritual and material potential for liberation. In Unity in Darkness (2023), fire is explored through the intimate exchange of two matchsticks keeping each other鈥檚 flames alight. The two flames fuse into one against a dimly-lit space, meditating on the entanglement of our humanity and our shared futures. In the award-winning short film, Pendulum (2023), Mathieu contemplates the fraught legacies of transatlantic violence on the body, labour, power, and dreams of freedom. Pendulum presents a potent spiritual choreography between a matriarchal knowledge keeper and a group of men. The film鈥檚 visceral and rhythmic movement reflects a lurching and cyclical experience of time鈥攁lternating between feelings of tension and release between the past and future.
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