Soyons réalistes, croyons en l'impossible brings together recent works by Véronique Ducharme, Richard Install and Minna Pöllänen. The exhibition presents a collection of perspectives that address the relationship between mankind and the mysteries that surround us. Above all, it illustrates the desire of these three artists to venture into the world of the unknowable, each one of them with a notion of their inevitable failure to reach a succinct understanding of human reality.

Véronique Ducharme is interested in the negative space left by the absence of the human body. She photographs forms created from clothing: portraiture that is void of the living. The images she constructs are comfortably familiar and yet seem to mysteriously elude us; the result is a body of work that explores the similarities between human otherness and the process of photography as an experience of loss.

Richard Install's practice explores the possible relationship between scientific theory, philosophy and art. The work itself playfully addresses the paradoxes that are created within and between these disciplines and our natural desire to question the possibilities of reality. Through the use of familiar everyday objects and rudimentary home experiments, his video installations endeavour to visualise these ideas.

Minna Pöllänen's photographs address issues surrounding the complex relationship between man and nature. Her work is a process of exploration and discovery that materializes itself through a combination of sculpture and photography. In the series Wood on Trees, the artist is attempting to revive two dead birch trees with the aid of industrially processed wooden planks of the same species. Pöllänen often approaches her subject in this curiously playful manner.

images:
Véronique Ducharme, Sans titre, 2010, inkjet print, 76 x 115 cm
Richard Install, Universe, 2010, SD video, 1 min 30 s, loop
Minna Pöllänen, Sans titre, C-print, 70 x 55 cm