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Caroline Monnet

Ceremonial

2018

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Caroline Monnet

Ceremonial

2018

Physical Qualities Single-channel video (color, sound), Duration: 3 minutes, 11 seconds
Credit Line Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Philip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon
Object Number 2022.71
Ceremonial follows an elder through the Canadian wilderness to explore ritual practices among Indigenous First Nation tribes in North America. Through collaged film and digital footage, the video attracts viewers with a hypnotic rhythm while refusing any narrative explanation. In this work, Monnet shows glimpses of ceremonies without directly depicting them. By shielding these practices from the eyes of the outside world, she acknowledges that only the communities who engage in these rituals should know them. The artist asks, “Can Indigenous communities practice their cultural beliefs without the fear of a camera trying to capture the ceremony?” Ceremonial serves as a form of protection, using the camera as a tool to both obscure and observe Indigenous knowledge and history.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2022; Gallery Blouin Division, Montreal
Jessica Bell Brown, Cecilia Wichmann, and Leila Grothe, with Antoinette Roberts, Oscar Flores-Montero, Dylan Kaleikaumaka Hill, and Maura Callahan, Baltimore Museum of Art, "Crosscurrents: Works from the Contemporary Collection," February 26, 2025 to September 3, 2026; work on view from April 2, 2025 to September 3, 2025.

Artist

Caroline Monnet

(Anishinaabe/French) b. 1985, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Meet Caroline Monnet

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