Myriam Yates

Myriam Yates’ video works reflect her interests in new technologies, obsolete urban spaces and the media. She investigates our relationship to the city and the character of our individuality and intimacy in public space. For this two-screen video installation, a few figures appear simultaneously under the gaze of the city. The two images share an existence within a dysfunctional, abandoned or disappearing place, behind the shadows of urban spatial competition.

Presented work:
Isolations (2007), video installation

Myriam Yates
Born in Montréal, Canada, in 1971
Lives and works in Montréal

Myriam Yates’ photography and video-based practice leans towards a documentary approach, exploring the tenuous relationship between public and private space as well as obsolete urban sites related to leisure and culture. Her artworks, such as the photograph diptych Sentiers (2000), come out of a preoccupation around the idea of human encounter in sites such as pleasure gardens and empty conference rooms. This work is a reflection on our relationship with the built environment and on the different connotations of luxury, power, and evasion that these spaces emanate. An ambiguous dynamic between the two images is created through a juxtaposition of carefully selected sites with precisely orchestrated portraits. A narrative potential is initiated and Yates leads the viewer to contemplate not only what is represented, but to anticipate what may occur. In her video work, an extension of her photographic approach to the image, Yates seeks to establish a distinct narrative tension in the viewer through spatial and sonic manipulation. As in Prendre entre les deux (2003), the viewer finds himself in a surveillance role between two individuals who are facing each other, with their back to the public, as they are being filmed. For her most recent video installations, Yates continues to explore human exchange in obscure public spaces. The viewer, standing amidst the video image and experiencing the dynamics of the exhibition space, becomes directly implicated in the act of inhabiting and discovering public spaces. Subjective meaning, a sense of spatial function, and a narrative significance to these spaces are assigned.

LA MAISON DE LA CULTURE DU PLATEAU-MONT-ROYAL
465, MONT-ROYAL E.
T: 514.872.2266
[SEPT. 07, 2007 – OCT. 07, 2007]

OPENING SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 08, 2007 AT 2 PM | TUESDAY TO THURSDAY FROM 1 PM TO 7 PM, FRIDAY TO SUNDAY FROM 1 PM TO 5 PM