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Remai Modern to debut new performance and exhibition by taisha paggett

For immediate release — September 4, 2024

SASKATOON, CANADA — Remai Modern is pleased to present soliloquy for a horizon, the first project on the Canadian prairies by interdisciplinary dance artist taisha paggett.

This project includes a new performance and exhibition by the Southern California-based artist, whose work engages Black and queer histories to contemplate ideas of desire, placemaking, possibility, and survival.

soliloquy for a horizon is part of paggett’s ongoing examination of Black survival and relational land practices across Turtle Island (US and Canada). The exhibition draws on the history of the Shiloh People, a community who left behind Oklahoma’s racist Jim Crow laws to forge Saskatchewan’s first Black settlement in 1910.

“As a dancer, taisha’s work is grounded in the body. Her project reveals a network of historical ties that link communities across borders and generations, honouring the movements of Black people who sought to build connections to land, place and community,” said Troy Gronsdahl, Curator (Performance and Public Practice). “Her exhibition is a space for reflection, perhaps even grief, and she invites us to contemplate our relationship to land, to feel and to be present with these complex histories.” 

Developed in collaboration with meital yaniv and Christopher Kuhl, this project aims to weave a thread about Black becoming across the prairies. Through a choreography of performance, video, text and objects, the artist layers personal and historical references such as the 20th-century dancer and model Maudelle Bass Weston, burial sites and drowned archives to consider the possibilities of landing as resistance.

On opening weekend, the museum will present a pair of programs that explore paggett’s practice through performance and conversation. On Friday, September 6 at 7 PM, paggett will perform a work of the same name as the exhibition. On Saturday, September 7, paggett will be joined by Michelle Jacques, Remai Modern’s Head of Exhibition & Collections/Chief Curator, for a conversation about her work. Admission to both programs is by donation.

Additional programs that explore the themes in paggett’s work will take place throughout the exhibition’s run. Visit remaimodern.org for more information.

soliloquy for a horizon is on view in Remai Modern’s Connect Gallery from September 6 to November 3, 2024.

Taisha Paggett's portraits with a short haircut in a plaid shirt and denim jumper"

About the artist

Born and raised in Fresno, California, taisha paggett (she/they) has created individual and collaborative works that re-articulate and collide specific western choreographic practices with the politics of daily life. Recent works include the dance company project, WXPT (we are the paper, we are the trees) and the collaborative School for the Movement of the Technicolo(u)r People, both of which also draw upon inquiries inside of social practice; critical pedagogy; somatic and contemplative investigation; queer, feminist and Black studies; performance and visual art studies; as well as the political and philosophical meshes of personal history. 

As a dancer, paggett has performed, toured with and made significant creative contributions to many choreographers, artists and performance projects. Her practice and research have been supported by the MAP Fund, the National Performance Network, and University of California Institute for Research in the Arts and residencies at the Headlands (Sausalito, CA), UBC Okanagan’s Summer Indigenous Studies program; and Basis Voor Actuel Kunst (Utrecht, NL). 

paggett’s work has been presented at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles); Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia); DiverseWorks (Houston); the Whitney Museum (New York); Studio Museum in Harlem (New York); Danspace at St Mark’s Church (New York); Defibrillator (Chicago); Gallery TPW (Toronto); and the Audain Gallery (Vancouver), amongst other venues. From 2005-13 paggett co-instigated the LA-based dance project and discursive platform, itch. paggett has received several awards including the Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Merce Cunningham Award in 2019.

About Remai Modern

Remai Modern is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Traditional Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respects to First Nations and Métis ancestors and reaffirm our relationship with one another. 

Remai Modern is a new museum of modern and contemporary art in Saskatoon. The museum presents and collects local and international modern and contemporary art that connects, inspires and challenges diverse audiences through equitable and accessible programs. 

Open since October 2017, Remai Modern is the largest contemporary art museum in western Canada and houses a collection of more than 8,000 works, including the world’s foremost collection of Picasso linocut prints.  

Remai Modern would like to acknowledge the contributions of the Frank & Ellen Remai Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture through the Sask Lotteries Fund, SK Arts and the City of Saskatoon. 

For additional information contact: 

Stephanie McKay, Communications Manager 
smckay@remaimodern.org 
306.975.2242