Sisters of the Cross is on display at Truck Gallery until November 11

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Sisters of the Cross by Dominique Rey
Truck
Monday, October 15 - Sunday, November 11

More in: Visual Arts

In a marked contrast to her previous photographic exhibition entitled Selling Venus, Dominique Rey documents the quiet lives of the elderly Catholic nuns of Winnipeg in Sisters of the Cross. While the images of Selling Venus explore the multifaceted nature of objectified women stripping in Carolina, Sisters of the Cross explores the other extreme element of the virgin-whore dichotomy propagated by many world religions and even contemporary societies — that of the nun, devoting her life and herself to God.

An empty bedroom, a worship hall with chairs askance and austere hallways decorated with wall hangings of Jesus and sculptures of Mary compose some of the photographs in Sisters of the Cross. Meanwhile, another room of the Truck Gallery is dedicated entirely to four screens of running video that show various aspects of the nuns’ lives. The films are interspersed with slices of the nuns’ daily activities — nuns watering plants, caregivers going about their day and administrative personnel taking care of their work. One is allowed to view only tentative glimpses of human life through reflections in windows and quick camera pans of the spartan environs.

As one follows the camera through the recondite corners of boiler rooms, storage spaces and the living rooms of the subjects of the Sisters of the Cross, one gets the impression that time stands still for the sisters. They are all near the end of their lives, with no one stepping up to carry on their legacy. A feeling of staleness and epilogue prevails. We are not even quite sure that we are in a nunnery, as the images could double as glimpses inside a hospital or geriatric unit. These symbols are apropos to the notion of Catholicism as a religion in its own end days within a predominantly secular society. The images could also be a catalogue of modern urban life for the elderly in the ’70s — lonely, dispossessed and with symbols of alienation pervading. The only evidence of the passage of time in the film is through the reoccurring chimes of a grandfather clock.

The exhibition consists of snapshots of mundane lives, and the images and sounds are evocative of the level of minutiae and organization that the nuns incorporate into their daily lives. Interesting to note is the virtual lack of personal possessions and mementos (other than books, or images of Jesus and Mary) we observe as we invade these intimate spaces. We become voyeurs of a different kind of peepshow, one that is in stark contrast to the ostentation of Selling Venus. With these two works, Rey succeeds in illustrating the contrast between perceiving women as objects and women actually dispossessing objects.

Rey has chosen to represent these nuns (one of whom she is related to) through their relationship to space and objects. This gives the show a very haunting quality, since we see very little of the nuns themselves. Accompanying the show is a series of subdued watercolour portraits of each of the sisters, adorning the entrance of the gallery. This is an appropriate and subtle device, since the subjects of her work are not objects themselves.

Another interesting contrast is the use of the mirror in Selling Venus as opposed to the use of the window as symbol in Sisters of the Cross. While the mirror is a device for self-reflection, windows are transparent, and allow one to see beyond what is immediately in front of them. This is an appropriate symbol for the nuns of Sisters of the Cross, and their transcendence of earthly concerns and connections.