Pangée, Montreal (Qc)
“TThe Thorn Stigmata and The Faded Branch of The Crown presents new works by Christopher Gambino (New York) and Marie Ségolène C. Brault (Montreal), accompanied by a commissioned text by Dr. Aneta Stojnić (New York). Moving between archival research and material experimentation, the exhibition reflects on mysticism, devotional practice, self-dissolution, and the figure of the victim soul.
Conceived as both a duo exhibition and a curatorial experiment, the project developed from an ongoing body of research into mysticism and the devotional object. Rather than organizing the exhibition around a fixed curatorial thesis, Brault invited Gambino and Stojnić into the research as interlocutors, allowing distinct artistic and theoretical approaches to converge around a shared set of questions. The exhibition thus operates as a space of encounter between artistic practices, archival material, and writing, with curatorial work functioning as an extension of the research itself.
Inspired by research into the life of the Franco-American mystic and stigmatist Marie Rose Ferron ( 1902 – 1936), the exhibition considers how ordinary objects become charged through acts of devotion. Ferron's wounds were never formally recognized by the Church, and her cause for canonization was eventually suspended. The photographs and narratives that remain inhabit an unresolved space between faith, performance, pathology, and possible fabrication.
Throughout the exhibition, matter becomes both the site of encounter and the obstacle to it, invested with meaning precisely because it cannot deliver what it promises. Objects solicit devotion while remaining stubbornly insufficient.
Full Documentation of the exhibition
Images by Atlas Documentation