topos is a performance that took place at the site of a former historical plaque along Montréal’s post-industrial Lachine Canal and consisted in the repeated action of drawing water and pouring it into a functionless vessel. This durational action that resounded along the adjacent leisure path lasted for four hours, until I could no longer support it. The extended exertion of the action drew on the Canal’s history as a site of labour and as an interface with the city’s water; its futility and spilling engaged a tension between historical relations and public commemorative space.

(performance documentation courtesy of Sophie Pineau)