Theologians and art historians have long underestimated the power of the everyday. In their search for sublime revelations, both have repeatedly overlooked the truth and beauty right before their eyes, in humble acts and images.
This shared blind spot is hardly a coincidence. It bears witness to a long and corrosive tradition of undervaluing the labor and experiences of women and other marginalized groups. By lifting up objects and rituals long derided as ‘women’s work,’ Anne Mourier awakens us to new and forgotten vocabularies and sensibilities. The spiritual and aesthetic replenishment she recovers is not a patrimony for some but an inheritance for all.
Mourier’s work resonates with the insights of the Jesuit thinker Michel de Certeau. In The Practice of Everyday Life, he reminds readers that daily rituals like walking or cooking—even if they are unconscious—can carve out crucial space for creative existence, outside institutional control. In other words, paying mindful attention to what we’re doing, whatever we’re doing, can be a mode of resistance.
This exhibition constitutes a double invitation. On the one hand, it welcomes visitors in, bathing us in subtle, enlivening textures, scents, and sights. On the other hand, the real work of this exhibition comes as we leave. The artist invites us to contemplate what it might mean to truly take care, both of ourselves and others.