Tasman Richardson
Necropolis

I enter Tasman Richardson’s corridor of dissolving static and projection. After turning a corner the narrow walls drop away into an open yet still blackened room and I am struck. Filling the opposite wall a rosette window drawn with light — so defined it seems carved out of the darkness — blazes in Gothic splendour. Its trefoils frame footage of actresses playing Joan of Arc, their faces contorted in expressions of defiance. Slightly disoriented from the shifting light levels, the projection seems an apparition — a vision. Vacillating between these moments of revelation and dissolution Necropolis becomes a pilgrimage, its works the saintly relics.

The sense of mindful journeying experienced throughout Necropolis, a solo exhibition of Richardson’s video work at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), pervades its design. Consisting of a narrow one-way path punctuated by six immersive installations, visitors travel up ramps and around corners, through slender halls and mirrored chambers. A sense of purpose compels our walking. Curator Rhonda Corvese describes Necropolis’s “superstructure” as a mapping that “channels visitors through stages of erosion, narcissism, acceleration, idolatry, self-doubt, and oblivion.” Memorial, the Joan of Arc rosette window, functions as idolatry within this list — a fleetingly climactic experience of divination before we enter our dénouement.