Catalog of Ruins, at the Centre des arts actuels SKOL from January 18th to March 30th, 2024, assembled the artworks of Samuel Bernier-Cormier, Lauren Chipeur, Kuh Del Rosario, Xavier Orssaud and Elise Rasmussen, which converge on themes of territorial retrieval, ecological awareness and the aesthetics of accumulation. The curatorial committee, including Manolis Daris-Bécotte, Clara Lacasse, Adrien Guillet, Hugo Nadeau and Stéphanie Chabot draws our attention to ruins, usually considered through two distinct lenses: the former encompasses sites regarded as ancient vestiges that serve as monuments to once-thriving civilizations while the latter involves the residual landscapes of former extractive pursuits (and capitalist economies). In response to the ecological crises and disasters occurring on a global level, Catalog of Ruins hones in on the latter perspective, calling into question the prevailing myths of human civilization and progress. The exhibition presents the “capitalist ruins,”^/ using scholar Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s conceptualization in which viewers are confronted with diverse manifestations of the environmental impact of human activity. The artworks present ecosystems that feature abundance and exploitation, emblematic of the Anthropocene—the present geological time in which human activity has detrimentally affected the climate and environment.

Meticulously arranged side by side, Lauren Chipeur’s tinted papers of What is it Like to be an Onion (2023) cover an entire wall, drawing the visitor into the gallery space. The textured materiality of Chipeur’s papers, imbued

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