Something/Nothing

About the Artist

Stacey Elizabeth Cann is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and curator working in Montreal, Quebec. She holds a BFA in Print Media from Alberta College of Art and Design, and an MA in Art Education from Concordia University. She writes about contemporary art with a particular focus on artist-run culture, performative practices, and sociomaterial approaches. Her artwork involves durational elements whose mundane nature borders on the absurd, and she is interested in how we present ourselves in the commonplace of our daily life.

Artist Statement

In this performance, I explore the duality of “Nothing” and “Something”. In particular, notions that either concept points to non-existence, specific existence, or all things that do or could exist. By writing or speaking the word “Nothing”, you create a thing, which then is something rather than nothing. However, without it signifying something specific, ‘something’ also loses its meaning. As the words are repeated, they fluctuate between having meaning and merely being a series of lines. 

During Covid I began to think about what it means to do nothing. If we are at home doing nothing to prevent the spread of COVID, are we actually doing something? In a world where ecological disaster seems imminent, and the pandemic has no end in sight, what does it mean to do nothing or to do something about these issues?  

Could doing nothing in fact be something? Is something sometimes worse than nothing? These are the questions explored by this performance piece.