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Voyageurs
For Wesner,
the Detroit River is the single defining
feature of the city that has remained constant
over the last three hundred years, marking
the border of the city and the country as
well as serving as a place for industry
and recreation. In his installation the
river becomes a place to experience movement
and tranquility. Video projections, edited
to play at varying tempos, place the viewer
in the position, virtually, of the oarsman,
who marks time through rhythmic strokes
and sees the water’s surface break.
Neither land nor a horizon are visible,
but movement is implied in the sound of
rowing—drips, splashes, and the rattling
of the hardware.
Wesner’s installation
was inspired by the accounts of early
French explorers, or voyageurs,
including Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac,
who navigated the river by canoe in the
early 1700s. Cadillac’s accounts
of his exploration describe an idyll in
the lands and waters of Detroit. Wesner
returns us to a pre-industrial experience
of the water passage. Reductive in form,
the installation transports and engages
us in the rhythms of a journey.
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