EDWARDS, Claudia

Palimpsest
Launched March 11, 2026

In Video A, I handle various objects related to my family archive: inherited items, personal gifts, archival materials, fragmented histories. The memories and meaning associated with the items are unknown to the viewer. Nonetheless, I measure their volume through displacement of water, evaluating the space memory occupies.

After measuring the volume of all items by displacement in Video A, the remaining water is frozen inside its container. Video B shows this now-frozen ice block, suspended and slowly melting. At the end of Video B, the very same container is shown to be catching the melting ice water, a loop that asks where memories begin and end: both tangible and intangible, present and absent, cycling and transforming with time.

Palimpsest is a work created in dialogue with Erika Defreitas’ works nothing ever so straight. and Her body is full of light (often, very often, and in floods). In the former performance, I was interested by Erika’s evaluation or valuing of the objects, at one moment saying, “[t]hese things, objects, are these things that are beings,” and her approach to writing through Gertrude Stein’s play by creatively centring absent histories, or figures lost in the margins. This made me think of the term palimpsest and its origin, where a manuscript has been rubbed smooth or washed off so it can be written over, but traces of it still remain in the new text. And how within families, one generation to the next is a kind of palimpsest, carrying traces, memories, DNA of the former, while becoming something new, a kind of inheritance. In the latter split-screen video, Erika and her mother are separately recorded, and each laughs until they begin to cry. Watching this, I felt like I was witnessing a shared embodiment or kind of inheritance, how a person might inherit a gesture, or other intangible things. I wanted to play with these themes, contrasting material with immaterial; making absence present; making the intangible tangible.

Thank you to Erika, for the profound and inspiring work that you do, and thank you to Paul of 7a*11d, for all your encouragement, generosity of spirit, and for opening the door to the archive.

Credits:
Camera: Peppercorn Imagine and Claudia Edwards
Sound recording: Peppercorn Imagine
Editing: Claudia Edwards
Thanks to Elliot Creager for production assistance and moral support.

Claudia Edwards is a Toronto-based performance artist of Indo-Guyanese and British descent. Conceptually driven, their work explores colonialism, identity and grief, often through the vocabularies of embodiment, absurdism and the queer trickster tradition. Edwards’ practice spans relational performance, experimental dance, photography, video, text and object-making. They have created works for FADO Performance Art Centre, VIVA! Art Action, BUZZCUT, Flux Factory and more, and have presented performances and workshops in festivals and galleries across Canada, the US, the UK, and online. Curatorial works include HOTWIRE, a live art series featuring QTBIPOC artists hosted by Hub14, and serving on the Rhubarb 2020 curatorial collective. Edwards holds a BFA from Concordia University (2016).

References/Resources

The following references were cited or suggested during Paul Couillard’s interview with Claudia Edwards and Erika DeFreitas:

Gerturde Stein: avant-garde American writer and art collector (1874-1946) who lived much of her life in Paris. Her play “Objects Lie on a Table” was published in 1922.
Erika DeFreitas mentions her explorations around contacting Stein through a psychic medium. This relationship, and many of the themes DeFreitas touches on in this interview, are also explored in “Glowing Objects and the Psychometric Interstice: An Interview with Erika DeFreitas by Jennifer Fisher” (2019).
Agnetha Dyck: Canadian sculptor based in Winnipeg, known for her work using honeybees to build honeycomb on objects placed in their hives
Tender Considerations, Geneviève Wallen’s 2018 essay critical review of the 2018 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, is quoted by Claudia Edwards in regard to Erika’s work nothing ever so straight.
Claudia cites Erika’s video work featuring her and her mother, Her body is full of light (often, very often, and in floods) (2016). This work was screen as part of the 2017 TPAC project 7a*md8.
Crying Madonnas: This refers to the phenomenon of weeping statues, usually of the Virgin Mary.
The West on Trial: My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom: The book held up by Claudia is the autobiography of Cheddi Jagan (1918–1997), a Guyanese politician whose parents emigrated from India as indentured workers. Jagan’s upbringing under the indenture system influenced his political views and commitment to social justice. He became the first popularly elected Prime Minister of British Guiana in 1953, and played a crucial role in fighting for independence from the United Kingdom, later achieved in 1966.
Rudyard Kipling: English write (1865-1936) noted as a champion of British imperialism. Just So Stories (1902) is a collection of children’s stories offering fantastical accounts of how animals acquired particular attributes.
Royal Doulton figurines: collectibles created by the eponymous British ceramics manufacturer
Viva! Art Action: biennial performance art festival based in Montreal, Quebec. The performance Claudia describes creating there is Sine qua non.
FADO Performance Art Centre: artist-run centre for performance art based in Toronto
Vtape: artist-run video distribution centre based in Toronto