Real Job Interviews paraphernalia - reenacting fiction (A critical essay by Roxanne Arseneault) “ I have already been in a very weird interview. At a certain point, I just knew I wouldn’t have that job, so I decided to go with the flow. The Boss told me strange things, so I told him weird things. I knew I had to work on a project inspired by this conversation.” (Julie Lequin- JL) Transposing the banal into an art project is at the heart of Lequin’s art practice. Thus, Real Job Interviews paraphernalia -reenacting fiction is based on the stressful and universal experience of a job interview, especially, the performative aspect of a presentation to future potential employers. Inspired by the periodic episodes in which she had to perform this function, as well as with the very particular dynamics between interviewee and interviewer that vary from one interview to another, Lequin imagines various scenarios which will take the form of a video one day. In the context of this exhibition, her emphasis is on the preparatory work that is not usually present in a completed video. Lequin is interested in the multidimensional aspect of preparation, believing that the combination of various disciplines will permit a better integration of her imagined worlds. Focused on the craft mediums that she has privileged since the beginning of her practice, the Gallery 101 exhibition will present sketches, watercolors, banners, wigs on textile busts with paper-mache bases, and photographs of her inspiration boards that contribute to the psychological and visual creation of her future characters. The exhibit will also includes a sound track serving as the artists curriculum vitae, (an idea that she pursued for a few years now). “My mother cut an article out of the newspaper five years ago. It announced that, in the future, there will be no more printed CV’s only video presentations of the job candidates.. Haha... I like this concept...”. (JL) The artifacts in her exhibition draw a parallel between the difficulties of preparing for a job interview and the development of an art project. The exhibition becomes itself an inspiration board for both the characters and the scenarios they find themselves in. The inspiration that shapes this project allows the artist to further develop the job interview concept into a future conversation with an arts audience. Her job interview experiences serve as a catalyst for the creation of the archetypical and metaphoric characters in the exhibition. Selected protagonists are, in a way, recurrent to the Julie Lequin’s artist life: the CEGEP department director, the star artist and her assistant, as well as the feminist academic. Although their typology is banal, the characters’ transformation into physical and psychological caricature inspire Lequin’s singular and playful filter. The artist interprets and differentiates the characters from each other and recreates them into something like puppets. In this way, the character’s attributes are enlarged and influenced as much by their craft as by their function of focusing our attention on them as signifiers of the concept of video preparation. Real Job Interviews paraphernalia - reenacting fiction shares similarities with her other projects like Top 30, Speech Lesson and Car Talk, in which the artist uses art making to exorcise daily challenges in a playful and imaginative way. Lequin finds the inspiration for this project in the humour and judgement that are characteristic of her past conversations. “ I find it long working alone, so I have to be able to laugh with myself. I know I have done something good when I see my work and I say ‘Oooooohhh shiiiiiiiiiit’. hahahaha...” (JL) Lequin’s artworks have a charming and unique form. The works display an incongruity and playfulness which is both clumsy and completely controlled at the same time. Thus, the artist reminds us that a mixture of being authentic and making fun of yourself is not only encouraged in interviews but also welcomed and refreshing within art circles. -Roxanne Arseneault, 2012