e-artexte

"In this new volume of the CCA Singles presenting the Meanwhile in Japan conversations, Toyo Ito sat with a group of young architects and academ­ics to discuss how his early work of the 1970s and 1980s took a radical approach to intervening in a newly emerged consumerist culture in Tokyo. As architects elsewhere in the world sought to break through the conventions of modern­ism, Ito attempted to bring new signifi­cance to architecture in a rapidly transforming city, with particular attention to the lives of women in urban society.



Led by Koji Ichikawa, the conversation included Mikio Wakabayashi, Kozo Kadowaki, Riken Yamamoto, Makoto Ueda, Yutaro Muraji, Koji Ichikawa, Wakana Hara, and Haruhiko Sunagawa.



This book is the third volume in a series presenting conversations between a young generation of architects and scholars and key figures of Japanese architecture (Itsuko Hasegawa, Hiroshi Hara and Toyo Ito) of the 1970s and 1980s who attempted to redefine architecture beyond the doctrine of modernism and address the needs of society at large." -- Publisher's websit

Toyo Ito with Koji Ichikawa and Others : Meanwhile in Japan

Virani, Aquil

Jaffer, Mobina

Fifty Years of Resilience

Smith, Julia Eilers

A Stage for Rebellion

Robertson, Sonia

Eshi uapatakau ishkueuatsh tshitassinu = Regards de femmes sur le territoire

[The Enchanted Forest]

Behzadi, Mojeanne

Jodoin, Sophie

in a single breath
SOPHIE JODOIN

2, Sainte-Catherine Street East, room 301
Montreal, Quebec H2X 1K4
514.874.0049 — artexte.ca | info@artexte.ca
ISBN 978-2-923045-57-3
in a single breath
SOPHIE JODOIN
FROM APRIL 14 TO JUNE 22, 2023

Foreword   6
MANON TOURIGNY
On in a single breath  8
MOJEANNE BEHZADI
in a single breath  10
SOPHIE JODOIN
Gallery layout   12
About the artist  13
SOPHIE JODOIN
Acknowledgments  14
6
Having arrived at Artexte in the fall of 2022, I never had the opportunity 
to follow Sophie Jodoin’s long research process in our collection, but I still 
witnessed it. I occasionally caught a glimpse of her, focused and attentive 
to what she had found in the boxes she was looking through. She always 
had a notebook nearby, and its pages grew darker with each visit. I imagine 
she was writing down the names of the women she had selected to keep 
track of her research. Sometimes she would sit by the window and, with 
her cellphone camera, capture select fragments to create a new archive. 
Artexte’s consultation space became her temporary studio.
In the interest of preservation, the entire collection is carefully treated 
and made available to artists, curators, art historians, students, and the 
broader public. Artexte holds over 9,018 artists’ files, 5,761 of which are 
in section 410–Canadian artists. However, since these are not identified 
by gender, it’s impossible to know the exact number of female artists’ 
files. In her quest, Sophie Jodoin chose 135 of these. The names of these 
women, along with a few authors, can be found on the wall adjacent to the 
exhibition space. These are only a sampling, but we can assume that there 
are far fewer female artists’ files than there are male ones, and even fewer 
for curators and writers. 
Foreword
MANON TOURIGNY
7
elle précède celle qui suit  [she precedes the one who follows]
This phrase is an excerpt from Sophie Jodoin’s project on entend son 
cœur battre à grands coups [we hear her heart beat fast and loud] (2018). 
This phrase lingered in my mind. I felt like it was addressed directly to us, 
to the collection that we’ve held for more than forty years. The founders 
of Artexte preceded us, then they moved on. They built the foundations 
of this organization. Now we are here, as guardians of the documents that 
members of the visual arts community have given us for posterity. But, 
as Sophie Jodoin states in her text, there are gaps in our collection. In the 
history of art, women’s contribution is too often forgotten. We must break 
this cycle and work toward increasing the number of files from women, 
non-binary and LGBTQIA2S+ people who are also artists, art critics, and 
curators. Sophie’s research underlines the importance of promoting 
Artexte’s mandate to every generation of artists and to all who contribute 
to bringing attention to art in the making. 
To not forget. To recognize ourselves. To find ourselves. To tell ourselves. 
To see ourselves. 
Finally. 
8
During her research residency at Artexte, artist Sophie Jodoin became 
intimately familiar with all the dormant files on Canadian women artists 
in our collection. Over the course of her extensive project, she tended 
to these documents with utmost care and respect, devising a rigorous 
process for surveying the contents of every file. She catalogued her 
findings carefully, by photographing, scanning, and photocopying each 
meaningful discovery. The artistic lens through which she has treated 
each image imbues the collected findings with a warm grey hue and 
surface texture emblematic of industrial photocopy prints. This Xerox 
quality serves both to unify the images and to immerse us into Jodoin’s 
soft visual perspective, all the while highlighting the documentary nature 
of her source materials.
Central to Jodoin’s considerations during her residency and for this 
exhibition is the notion of the archive. Her work calls attention to the 
importance of printed matter, venerates the act of documenting artistic 
practices, and pays tribute to organizations such as ours: the libraries 
and collections that catalogue these paper trails and ensure the posterity 
of creative pasts and presents. Her visual lexicon traces the act of safe-
keeping and points to the infinite possibilities and continued relevance 
of material information, as both an alternative and a complement to 
ubiquitous digital information systems.
On in a single breath
MOJEANNE BEHZADI
9
The exhibition’s centrepiece is a filmic collage which consists of a selec-
tion of image and textual snapshots from Artexte’s files. The facsimiles of 
these archival items are arranged in an associative sequence, creating 
a visual record in which Jodoin’s voice blends with those of the women 
she invokes in her research; together, they converse in a single breath. 
To accompany the video, Sophie approached artist Karen Trask to create 
a piano piece as a score for the film. Using only two notes, which repeat 
slowly throughout the video, Trask’s accompaniment fills the space with 
a haunting quality.
in a single breath is a love letter to women, to artists, to women artists, to 
mothers, to Jodoin’s own mother—who is at the root of this quest for exis-
tential knowledge. The exhibition pays homage to the life force in women, 
chronicling their existence, witnessing their experiences, their inner 
worlds, their tribulations, across generations, across realities. Time is a 
significant component of the work. The many temporalities encountered 
across this sea of documents gesture at life itself and its precarity: our 
mortality. Time is felt in poetic citations, seasonal shifts, the light of day, 
the cosmos, the artist’s own hands. Time is also invoked in the duration of 
Jodoin’s project and her patient dedication in bringing all these moments 
together, to form a visual poem, a choir.
10
The exhibition in a single breath is a continuation of my work in which 
text, images, and selected fragments document the traces of a life. This 
project is the result of a generous invitation from Artexte to conduct a 
research residency based on their collection. By considering archives and 
writings as vectors of speech, and guided by my interest in filial bonds, an 
inventory gradually began to take shape between 2021 and 2022. Through 
a familiar working process of searching, collecting, and editing, this intui-
tive and methodical incursion allowed me to explore the entire archive of 
Canadian women artists in the 410 section of the collection, which led to 
a very personal rereading of its contents. How could I (re)embody these 
archives, (re)incarnate their voice, and translate them differently?
This residency was guided by the desire to take these artists out of their 
boxes, and sometimes out of oblivion, and treat each of them equally 
—with no regard for any hierarchy of age, practice, history, or geography—
in the hope of creating a dialogue between them. Hundreds of visual and 
textual fragments were documented in the moment and the emotion of 
their discovery. Like a diary, together they form a personal lexicon of the 
mother-daughter relationship. The black and white projection revealed 
itself as a mode of presentation quite naturally since it allows several 
decades of creative work to coexist. What transpires is a kind of narrative 
river; a long, open poem; a polyphonic choir; an imagined sorority.
 
in a single breath
SOPHIE JODOIN
11
In Artexte’s two-part exhibition space, in a single breath takes the form of 
an installation. In the main gallery, the projection scrolls through a series 
of still images that evoke the aesthetics of the document. It weaves an 
intimate and poetic narrative that oscillates between reality and fiction, 
past and present: a mother’s portrait composed by her daughter through 
the many voices she has assembled. On the wall in the adjoining space, 
the names of the featured artists and authors are listed. On a nearby 
shelf, a book-based document combines names and images while also 
echoing the projection—its breath and rhythm. In this way, it becomes 
the project’s trace and its archive.
in a single breath is the site of a personal and collective composition 
about desire, dreams, the banality of life, old age, memory, grief, and 
loss. It’s an incomplete portrait that can be (re)deployed indefinitely. This 
exhibition is its first breath.
12
1
2
3
4
1
Sophie Jodoin: Drawing Shadows : Portraits of my Mother / 2004
Artist’s book in Artexte’s collection
2
in a single breath / 2022-2023
Black and white video projection, 21 min 15 sec, 182 images in a loop
Soundtrack: Karen Trask, Sketch for The Waves in E flat and F 
(conversation with my mother) / 2023
3
List of the artists and authors featured in the video projection
4
Reference document for the video projection in a single breath / 2023
Black and white digital print, 380 bound pages
Edition 1/3
Gallery layout
13
About the artist
SOPHIE JODOIN
Sophie Jodoin is a visual artist who questions various manifestations of 
femininity, intimacy, loss, absence, and language. Her hybrid work com-
bines drawing, collage, writing, found objects, installation, and video. In 
2017, she was the recipient of the Prix Louis-Comtois as well as the Prix 
Giverny Capital. 
She lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal.
14
I would like to thank Artexte for their invitation to conduct a research 
residency within their collection, Mojeanne Behzadi for her belief and her 
commitment to my work, as well as Hélène Brousseau, Anabelle Chassé, 
Jessica Hébert, Joana Joachim, Jonathan Lachance, Manon Tourigny, and 
Sarah Watson for their support during my residency and for welcoming my 
project in their space; Mark Lowe and Chris Lloyd (Centre VOX) for their 
technical support; Marie-France Thibault and Edwin Janzen for revision, 
as well as Jo-Anne Balcaen and Manel Benchabane for translation.
Éric Aubertin, Stéphanie Béliveau, Béatrice Cloutier-Trépanier, Harley 
Smart, Marie Tourigny, and Leila Zelli for their invaluable assistance 
and keen insight; the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the 
Canada Council for the Arts for their support; and D, as always.
A very special thank you to all of the women artists in the 410 section 
of Artexte’s collection who inspired this residency and without whom 
this project could not have happened, and to Karen Trask who agreed to 
revisit her composition Sketch for The Waves in Eflat and F (conversation 
with my mother), which accompanies my projection in a single breath.
Acknowledgments




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Toyo Ito with Koji Ichikawa and Others : Meanwhile in Japan

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Eshi uapatakau ishkueuatsh tshitassinu = Regards de femmes sur le territoire

[The Enchanted Forest]

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