Solitaire: Julian Hou and Anne Bourse Cassandra Cassandra, Toronto September 7 – 29, 2019

he Jekyll and Hyde relationship between solitude and loneliness is a known feeling to most. There is Solitude, she who is comfortably alone, and then there is Loneliness, she who is sad because she is alone—distinct but yoked states of being. Recently, however, within this prolonged state of hyperconnectivity—where the opportunity for both physical and psychical aloneness is minimal—it seems that solitude is increasingly mistaken for loneliness, or, if not that, some apathetic intervening feeling. Standing in the empty corridor between the personal, handmade contributions of Anne Bourse and Julian Hou in the two-person exhibition at Cassandra Cassandra, I wonder: within this condition of ready connection and constant pseudo-companionship, is solitude something that needs to be practised, manifested, displayed? After all, Solitaire is a game intended for one.