in a single breath is an installation consisting of a filmic collage in which 153 artists and authors are cited through visual and textual fragments, a tribute wall listing their names, and a reference document. It weaves an intimate and poetic narrative oscillating between reality and fiction, past and present: a portrait of a mother composed by her daughter through the many voices she has assembled. What transpires is a kind of narrative river, a polyphonic choir, an imagined sorority exploring desire, dreams, the banality of life, old age, memory, grief, and loss.

In an intuitive and methodical intervention by way of familiar working processes of searching, collecting, and editing, Sophie Jodoin explored the entire archive of Canadian women artists in the collection of Artexte, coming to a thoroughly personal rereading of its contents. How could she (re)embody this archive, (re)incarnate its voices, and translate them differently? Guided by the desire to take these artists out of their boxes, and sometimes out of oblivion, the artist treated each of them equally—with no regard for any hierarchy of age, practice, history, or geography—in the hope of creating a dialogue among them.

The exhibition in a single breath, initially presented at Artexte in Montreal from April 14 to June 22, 2023, followed a research residency within its collection.

in a single breath is presented by VU as part of Mois Multi in collaboration with Artexte .