Public places appear as the theatres of improbable situations in which different realities meet – while Pussy Riot enters a souk in Aleppo, a Syrian migrant sleeps in the grand hall of a Montréal museum. Although the scenes are apparently incongruous, the photomontages echo the way different references to world events are constantly crossed and superimposed in the media. These sites of false encounters become the occasion to clear away questions about the veracity of information and put our own connection with the world to the test. Forcing the meeting of different critical and political situations, Amantea’s “faux sites” underscore the inability of art to really act in the world and reflect our own inertia in the face of humanity’s fate.
The artist would like to acknowledge the assistance and support of the following : Anil Ragubance, Anne Marie Holland (Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University, Montreal), Dirk De Meyer (Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium), Peter White
