Fish Tail
- Marie Ségolène Brault
Western Front is pleased to present Fish Tail, a performance by Montreal-based artist Marie Ségolène Brault. Developed during a three-month residency at the Matapédia train station in Quebec and the Acadian region of southeastern New Brunswick, Fish Tail is a thirty-minute one-woman show and installation that unfolds as an epistolary narrative.
Inspired by a 1989 New York Times article recounting a fishing expedition on the Matapédia River—detailing water temperatures, shifting currents, and the challenges of catching salmon on the fly—Fish Tail is structured around a series of unsent letters addressed to a compulsive fisherman, a small Montreal bar and its bartender, and the Matapédia River. These confessions are enriched by conversations with Matapédia locals, personal memories, and quotations from literature and film. Sound recordings, foraged flora, martini glasses, fishing tackle, found books, laboratory equipment, and a dead fish fill the installation, creating an unsettling environment rich in symbology. In Fish Tail, Brault constructs a rhizomatic narrative through interwoven poetic fragments exploring desire, time, seduction, and longing.
About the Artist
Marie Ségolène Brault is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator based in Montreal, Canada. Informed by psychoanalysis and divinity, her work transforms text into performances and sculptural installations that offer theatrical expressions of desire. She holds a Masters in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is the founding director of the gallery Espace Maurice.
Accessibility
The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of 26 stairs. Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.
Acknowledgements
Fish Tail was developed as part of the Québec-Acadie Residencies presented by the Gare de Matapédia, Gaspésie; the Projet Borgitte, Cap-Pelé; the Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton; and the Darling Foundry, Montreal. Presented with support from the Government of Canada.
Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.
We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.