Sep 9th 2012

Joan Giroux: one sandpile, within hearing distance

@ Terrain

704 Highland Ave; Oak Park, IL. 60304

Opening Sunday, September 9th, from 4 PM - 7 PM

On view through Sunday, October 14th

“one sandpile, within hearing distance” by Joan Giroux opens September 9 at 4:00- 7:00PM

In her latest body of work, “I have shewed you all things: investigations of giving,” Joan Giroux translates aspects of caregiving in domestic and institutional settings.

Opening at Terrain on Sunday, September 9, the installation “one sandpile, within hearing distance” presents humble objects for consideration: a handwritten text, a postcard picture of a small Wisconsin town in the 1930s, a sandbox, and the scent of sugar cookies. The installation addresses the persistence of memory as it draws out images from the artist’s past rooted in childhood and storytelling. Absence becomes presence through the resonance and return of the familiar.

Images and objects frame a series of readings and discussions on exchanges that occur during moments of diminishment, frailty, vulnerability, loss and death. The ensuing conversations and Giroux’s work as a hospice volunteer will inform her ongoing exploration of concepts and elements of a good death and how this informs our living.

The installation will be open to the public from September 9 until October 14, 2012.

An opening reception is scheduled for Sunday, September 9, from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. Short readings are scheduled on the half hour during the opening, as well as on Sunday, September 23, and Sunday, October 14, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.
Joan Giroux is an interdisciplinary artist, activist and educator. Her work ranges from discrete handmade objects, digital photomontage, kinetic sculpture and installation to full-scale theatrical productions and community interventions, reflecting strong interests in language, history, game theory and social conditioning.

Giroux’s work has been exhibited in venues such as the MCA Chicago, Ace Gallery and Artist’s Space in New York City, and internationally in venues such as Amerika Haus Berlin and Künstlerhaus Hamburg. She has received a Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation studio residency, Pollock-Krasner and Berlin Cultural Council grants, and commissions from Illinois’ Morton Arboretum, the South Korean collective YATOO, and Lehniner Kulturinstitut, Germany.

She is currently Associate Professor in Columbia College Chicago’s Art + Design Department where she teaches studio art and art activism.

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