Fondation

DHC/ART is pleased to present the Canadian debut of The Enclave by Irish artist Richard Mosse, first presented at the Pavillion of Ireland at the 55th edition of the Venice Biennial.

Since 1998, over 5.4 million people have died due to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, yet so little of it has been covered by the Western media. Prompted by this shocking statistic, Richard Mosse first travelled to the eastern Congo in 2010. After many solo trips, he returned in 2012 and 2013 with cinematographer Trevor Tweeten and composer Ben Frost. Slowly and arduously, they implanted themselves amidst armed rebel groups and emerged with material that chronicles everyday life in zones overwhelmed by violence and instability. While much of this footage is unprecedented, what truly sets this project apart is the use of Kodak Aerochrome infrared film, a medium developed by the U.S. military for aerial surveillance, which translates anything green into pulsingly hot shades of pink. The verdant Congolese landscape and the camouflage of rebel army uniforms take on a surreality that thwarts our expectations of images of war.

Presented at DHC/ART’s 465 Saint-Jean location, The Enclave invites the viewer into a darkened room where six custom made screens are configured to move us around the space to engage with the work from a variety of perspectives. Ben Frost’s audio composition, made up entirely of field recordings, is played back through the six channels of audio that accompany each screen. The result is a sensory immersion into the deep complexity of the situation in the Congo, presented as it has never been “seen” or heard before. The installation is also accompanied by photographs from the series Infra (2011).