2024 | RENÉE CONDO
GESALTIMGEWEI
TORONTO
May 23 - June 29, 2024

Blouin Division is pleased to present Renée Condo’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Gesaltimgewei.

Condo’s work emerges from a practice-based exploration into the power of the bead to embody ideas derived from her evolving understanding and application of a Mi’gmaq Worldview, emphasizing Mntu and Heart Knowledge. In a continual state of flux, Mntu (energy or Spirit) is the underlying force of all things. Heart Knowledge is our way of participating in this flow, guided by empathetic love. It is the performative obligation to care for and be considerate of others, where our actions come from the heart.

Condo is equally fascinated by wave-particle duality, entanglement, superposition, concepts found within quantum physics, and their relation to a Mi’gmaq order. Her large-scale compositions serve as a visual language that reflect the parallels between these two worldviews, emphasizing interdependence, connectedness, harmony, reciprocity, renewal, and fluidity. Each bead is fundamental and imbued with infinite potentiality, as in the Mi’gmaq order, in which “each part enfolds or encapsulates the whole” (Marie Batiste and James Sakej Henderson).

In Gesaltimgewei, Condo explores the Mi’gmaq Creation Story for its foundational teachings that centre love as the source of law for Mi’gmaq people through its telling of Glooscap and his interactions with the knowledge keepers: Nugumi the Grandmother, Netawansum the Nephew, and Giju the Mother.