During the Circus Year Gävle 2020, the municipality of Gävle commissioned CirkusPerspektiv to create an exhibition and a program that examines the possibilities for a meeting between circus art and visual arts. From September to November 2020

, amid the global pandemic and global warming, the necessity to renegotiate how we interact with the world becomes increasingly imminent. The body of works by circus artist Marie-Andrée Robitaille is part of a process where she investigates a shift from human-centered circus making to one that takes significant consideration of the "other than human" forces in circus composition.

 

 

In the exhibition hall are displayed a series of objects chosen by the artist for the spectacularity of their forms, textures, sounds, and movements and their association to states of crisis and human vulnerabilities. Bubbles in the shape of a dodecahedron will remind us of the form of a virus. Safety blankets commonly used to protect against fire or prevent hypothermia are sculpted in different suggestive shapes, other pieces of foil will perform an aerial dance with us. And, mourning fenders commonly used to absorb the kinetic energy of a boat or vessel become pendulums of an immersive sound installation.

 

Robitaille manipulated, shaped, and rerouted these objects as a poetic response to the crises we are collectively experiencing.

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