Sign your fado

For this first solo exhibition at Tangled Art Gallery, artist Véro Leduc presents sign your fado as an immersive installation. Created during a research-creation residency at Buinho in Portugal in 2024, the artwork features signed music inspired by fado, a traditional Portuguese music genre. Here, this is not a translation of a spoken song into sign language (chansigne) but an original creation in Quebec Sign Language and international signs.

Continuing the work she has developed over the past several years, the artist explores the concept of Deafhood, which evokes both the different ways of being Deaf and a journey that continually shifts as it is lived, explored, and expressed. She is particularly interested in the affects associated with living as a Deaf person and in the various ways of communicating not only experiences of oppression, but also pride, agency, and the uniqueness of each Deaf experience.

Like many art forms, fado comes alive through its relationship with an attentive and receptive audience. In sign your fado, it becomes a bridge between oneself and others, a space where feelings of dissonance, connection and belonging can be transformed and shared – alongside the beauty and power of nature, the experience of otherness, the call to travel, saudade, and the ambivalence of the pain and joy of being in the world.