To Be Both: Creating Space for Conflicting Identities 

In her debut solo exhibition, Vanessa Tignanelli draws upon various aspects of her extensive artistic career, seating her creative practices in dialogue with her recent engagement to her fiancé as an exploration of her own identity and an interrogation of how identities come to be impacted and influenced by societal moulds. Whether for professional or personal commitments, the artist questions the limiting labels and stereotypes imposed upon us when we choose to pursue our greatest devotions, and whether there is a potential for space to be made for each facet of our identity. 

To Be Both, exhibited at the WKP Kennedy Gallery from September 24th to October 29th, showcases Tignanelli’s multidisciplinary collection of artwork. Her well-known early photojournalism work is reintroduced and re-envisioned from a painterly perspective, situated in dialogue with other newly developed content that ranges from 3D sculpture, installation, collage, photography, poetry, and personal archives that speak to the artist’s experiences and perspectives in her long-anticipated matrimony. 

Vanessa Tignanelli is a Canadian documentary photographer and videographer, returning back to her roots in North Bay, Ontario to fulfill her role as a soon-to-be wife. Tignanelli began her artistic career by acquiring a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art at the University of Guelph, graduating in 2012, and from that point gravitated towards her passion for photojournalism. Equipped with the knowledge and a talent for photography, the artist would pursue a business in event photography, but would return back to school in 2016 at Loyalist College in Belleville to excel in the field of photojournalism. It is within her work that Tignanelli expresses herself as the role of an activist, but perhaps more intimately, her work tends to revolve around celebrating individuality and those who reconcile identities that may not align with societal standards, shedding light on the dimensionality and depth of these subjects as an embracement of authenticity and difference. 

With Tignanelli describing herself as someone who has “always cared a lot and wanting to give one-hundred percent,” while being integral to her character and role as a professional, this sense of all-or-nothing dedication has surfaced as a conflict in navigating how to fulfill and oscillate between significant commitments in her life. Having become engaged in 2017, a year before her graduation from Loyalist in 2018, her marriage proposal would testify the idea that “you can’t possibly give your all to both roles,” a fear articulated by Tignanelli herself, but that also came as an unexpected assumption from colleagues who understood her ambitions within the field of photojournalism. The artist would feel an interesting shift in attitude and treatment of her legitimacy as a working professional, not being taken as seriously in her work given plans to marry. 

It is as though the choice to devote oneself to love strikes as a burden to other obligations in one’s life, a supposed conflict that has influenced Tignanelli’s overall intent with her exhibition. The title piece, To Be Both, a mixed-media installation from 2017 (the point at which her engagement ignited these fears) is encountered as the first piece upon walking into the gallery space. A poem that articulates the alternate dimensions between being a partner or an artist, matched with self-portraits of the artist with her fiancé that express compassion in contention with anxiety, serve to voice this dialogue throughout the corpus of works presented. 

The significance of human dimensionality is foregrounded as integral to the artist's approaches to identity and to validate senses of authenticity within an immediate display of her photojournalism work. The images stand as a history of Tignanelli’s long-standing intrigue with those that do not coincide with traditional society, but which offer poignant perspectives of diverse human experiences and narratives. By reintroducing the artist's hand and intervening the digital imagery with acrylic paint in her series My Work’s Life, the works legitimize the practice of documentary photography as one that contains artifice and that is deserving of being admired as such, just as those whom she has documented are deserving of being realized as tangible forms of art. This focus on dimensionality becomes reasserted throughout the show in order to shed light on the importance of recognizing the multi-faceted dimensions of one's character. 

In Mano-a-Mano, dimensionality takes a literal and physical form by adopting a unique contemporary medium: 3D printed sculptures of the artist's hands. As gestures of the artist stand in opposition to one another -- one being the middle finger of the activist and the other being the ring finger of the wife -- the intent has been to express a constant conflict of identity within herself. Yet the pairing of both dimensions comes to make a realization as to how both seemingly disparate roles actually contain more similarities than differences. It becomes crucial how both hands are essentially rendered as identical, other than their defining gestures. Both positions are demanding of the same kinds of attention, dedication and commitment, merely with different approaches and goals. The constant battle between activism and matrimony is one that is self-manufactured. In actuality, and in finding space within their presentation, neither position stands as a greater threat to the other, and both find space to co-exist on the same pedestal. 

This form of acceptance and realizing the embodiment of a multi-dimensional identity is found within the series of Illuminated Lace lithographs that again utilizes 3D technology and light to reveal portraits of the artist in lace, imbued with symbolic colours. In Beneath the Surface is White, the artist draws upon historical indicators of lace, with white as a colour representing purity and innocence. The use of red and black in accompanying pieces come to represent sensuality and mourning, respectfully. By illuminating the artist under these veils, the role of the wife is not to be taken as a solely defining attribute to one's character, but rather that one can embody the different roles within her marital status in an unrestricted way; with individuality remaining intact and forefront.

Collage comes to be another exciting way that Tignanelli expresses her feminized concepts and experiences within the realms of photojournalism and marriage in the Wild Wife series. Switching between bridal magazines and National Geographic magazines for her sources of imagery, the challenge of representing herself as an artist between both worlds is reconciled in newly crafted compositions that leave space to consider the union of such contrasting subject matter. With many of the works drawing upon readings of women of the ancient world, Tignanelli intends to reassert these goddess figures as a reclamation of their feminine power that has been lost over history. Attributing their reputations of empowerment to her own narrative, references to goddesses serve to reinstate ideas of power and autonomy that may be relinquished under the presumptions of marriage and working within a male-dominated industry. Ancient goddess figures are similarly utilized as representations of the artist herself, drawing upon certain archetypes and narratives as a way of expressing aspects of her interiority and present identity. As I Am: Maiden, Mother and Crone draws upon the deity archetype of the Triple Goddess, recalling the separate stages of the female life cycle and how herself as an artist relates to and fits in with this natural Neopagan celebration of women. With the Maiden symbolizing a youthful and enthusiastic achiever, driven by creativity, passion and an acquisition of knowledge, her figure is forefronted, pushing away that of the Mother figure as the role of self-sacrifice, nurture and care for others that has perhaps not been fully realized within the artist as of yet. To identify with the mother is not necessarily to identify with a maternal role, specifically caring for children. Nurturing, sharing, and caring for others can be an extension of the self in relation to family, friends, and members of a community. In this way, there may be space made to align with the role of a Mother as the artist enters a new chapter of being a wife. However, Tignanelli rather acknowledges her role as the Crone, typically the final stage of womanhood that celebrates and shares wisdom and experience, but that also recenters oneself within their learned desires and roots. Holding a lens within her hands, she reiterates the significance of her photography career and the camera as being the force that has brought her into being and will continue to facilitate her growth and existence. This implementation of goddess culture is significant as the artist draws upon historical narratives that serve to recontextualize and support a contemporary reality. By situating herself within the figures of celebrated and empowered goddesses, Tignanelli recognizes and reclaims the reputation of historical feminist roles in correlation to her own lived experience. 

This connection to ancient Goddess culture appears again in the installation work Fates, crafted with woven lace, tool, and thread into a rope that recalls weaving practices as a symbol of creation and spinning desires into being. As the work was made during a period in which the artist was suffering with feelings of depression and anxiety surrounding her decisions to move home at the height of her photojournalism career, she describes the work with the potential to be seen as a practice of becoming resilient. The artist embarked on the practice of weaving as intended to improve a distraught personal perspective. It is this vulnerability that Tignanelli describes throughout her work that is poignant, relaying the significance of her experiences. That which we decide to focus our desires and energy towards comes to bear weight on the view we have of ourselves, and as such, we assume that others' perceptions of our identity would be similar. If an interior dialogue is speaking to the ways that we see ourselves as being unsuccessful, lacking, or disparate in our personal trajectory, we fear similar judgement, as societal expectations and influences have informed us. Embodying a sense of vulnerability is a powerful act in accepting that which may be unsettled within oneself, defying notions of judgement or an infringement of values in order to facilitate growth and ascension from that which has been perceived to impair us. 

Vulnerability is most potently described through an object that may be overlooked in a general viewing, but upon further interrogation is a profound example of the anxieties faced when approaching matrimony. I’ve Worn It All Before includes the display of the ring that Tignanelli had kept from her kidnapping in The Gambia in 2017, where she was forced to be married to a stranger due to the fact that she was travelling as an unmarried woman in a Muslim community. Such a non-consensual experience undoubtedly leaves one questioning the values and ideas of matrimony that can be difficult to process when approaching one's own preconceived desires for marriage. 

Despite enduring such traumatic experiences surrounding marriage, sexism, and autonomy, Tignanelli presents a piece that I believe testifies her ability to work through such conflict in the name of love, devotion, and trust. An Exercise in Marriage is a collaborative series of instant film photographs shot by the artist's partner, Taylor Craig. The work again relies on the artist's ability to remain vulnerable, in this case surrendering her role as the photographer to become the subject, relinquishing control to her partner as an act of trust that is contingent to their roles within marriage. The dried flowers that appear in the photos, wilted due to the setbacks of the pandemic in delaying their wedding ceremony, attests to the patience and devotion of the couple. Not only has Tignanelli proved the reality that her decision to marry is a withstanding and agreeable commitment, but by temporarily removing herself from the role of the photographer within the context of her relationship, she proves that space can be made for either aspect of the artist's life where neither role works in contention or conflict, but that instead proposes a harmonious dynamic. 

In contrast to the societal expectations of love and marriage within the past century, our contemporary age does not hold the same dominant pressures to marry as a sign of social status, expected to find a suitable partner at an early age and start a family as a sign of success and happiness. Rather, when one comes to the decision to marry today, having not been influenced or enchanted by traditional narratives, marriage is decided upon purely as an act of love, commitment, and trust with a partner that can propose endless connection and intimacy for life. It is an act of desire as opposed to expectation. Yet considering the societal implications that are held within a contemporary capitalist society, in which one's career path and work-related ambitions become viewed as a reflection of their identity or worth, interesting comparisons arise between the status of one's occupation and the status of one's union. Each role imposes similar anxieties of commitment, responsibility, and the acceptance of whether or not one has made the right decisions for themselves. One of the most daunting similarities is how each role is so demanding of one's attention and devotion, that evidently will cause anxiety over the contention between both ambitions, and whether or not space can be made to embody both simultaneously. 

Tignanelli has successfully proven that one does not have to decide between desires through her amalgamation of works that each speak to the disparities between a professional career, a creative practice, and a feminized role in marriage. She has crafted a show where, even in the gallery space itself, a unification of these identities is articulated to present a complex dimensionality, as well as a coherent and dignified identity of herself as an artist, a wife, and an individual.