"The Thread That Runs Through Me" Art Show, Zana Wensel, Multicultural Heritage Centre, Stony Plain

“The Thread That Runs Through Me” Solo Exhibit by Zana Wensel

Date & Location:
The exhibit runs December 12, 2021, to February 28, 2022, in the Multicultural Heritage Centre Public Art Gallery.
http://multicentre.org/exhibit-schedule/
5411 – 51 Street, Stony Plain, AB

Curated by Alexis Marie Chute, Multicultural Heritage Centre Public Art Gallery - Contact: [email protected]

Virtual Exhibition Premiere: Thursday, January 20, 2022, 7:00 PM MT on the Multicultural Heritage Centre YouTube Channel

Meet-the-Artist Open House: Saturday, January 22, 2022, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Exhibit Description:
Cell memory (sometimes interchanged with ‘body memory’), is the theory that memories can be stored beyond the brain, deep “in a psychosomatic* network [that] extends into the body” (Pert 1997). Due to the ways in which traumatic events flood the brain’s memory receptors, they are thereby “distributed along pathways to internal organs and the very surface of [the] skin,” (Pert 1997). As such, cell memory refers to the ‘imprints’ trauma makes on the psyche and soma, and the impacts this has on the mindbody** thereafter.

The Thread That Runs Through Me is a body of work that explores this notion of cell memory in relation to trauma. Through the pairing of text and visual form, the artist sheds insight upon what constitutes cell memory, and aims to bring consciousness to her own experiences. In doing so, she confronts and materializes her relationship with cell memory as a form of catharsis, and reveals several psychosomatic effects that arise as a result.

Using fabric and thread as metaphors of the body’s interwoven composition, the artist communicates the sensory and palpable nature of cell memory, while simultaneously mending the relationship with her cells in the process. Through her use of various analogue methods, the integration of the body within these processes becomes essential as it simultaneously inhabits and conceives these works as both conduits and forms of self-realization. Through these means, the artist cultivates a space for herself to both reflect upon and release her embodied memories, and offers these works as reflections on the fabric of our human existence.

*Psychosomatic: of, relating to, concerned with, or involving both mind and body; of relating to, involving, or concerned with bodily symptoms caused by mental or emotional disturbance (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
**Mindbody: connected with the relationship between the mind and the body and how mental processes and physical processes affect each other (Cambridge English Dictionary)
Reference: Pert, C. B. (1997). Molecules of Emotion. New York, NY: Scribner.