au cas où -in case-در مورد

[Sara-Jeanne Bourget – Mark Johnsen – Reyhan Yazdani]

1129 E Hastings St.

June 12, 2025:

Through a patchwork of screens - Mark and Sara-Jeanne in Quebec, Reyhan in Tehran -we came together to imagine a show that would bring forward works on paper: our shared admiration for print, handmade paper, and drawing, the everyday realities of parenthood, and our frustration with the state of the world.

On that day, we discussed what unites our practices: an impulse to hold, fold, and preserve—acts that serve as both archive and shelter. In Case names this double gesture: replication as backup (prints, casts, proofs) and encasement as protection (home, object, body). These strategies reflect our roles as caregivers and parents—the everyday pressure of being held, and the way domestic life becomes material: a strip of foil pressed into paper, a small rug translated into a print, a season’s color carried onto a page.

June 13, 2025:

The next day, Israel attacked Iran. Reyhan and her family fled Tehran overnight. Internet access was scarce, so we began an email thread titled We are ok! — brief messages functioning like proofs, small records in case the connection was lost.

At that moment, the exhibition shifted. What had begun as a conversation about prints and encasement became an act of preservation itself: the need to replicate, to record, to hold on — in case, au cas où, در صورت.

We would like to give special thanks to Jeff Hallbauer at 1129 E Hastings and we humbly acknowledge that this exhibition took place on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.