50 TONNES OF SAND, ONE SHOVEL AND A DETERMINED ARTIST

For six days a week, seven hours a day, Victor Pilon is moving 50 tonnes of sand from one pile to another – and it’s mesmerizing

The Olympic Stadium in Montreal was holding a job fair last week. And a COVID-19 vaccination clinic. And, in the East Hall, a man was moving 50 tonnes of sand from one big pile to another.

In short, there are different ways of finding direction in life.

For performance artist Victor Pilon, his current mission is to continually shift the sand for 30 days, working seven hours a day, six days a week.

Last Saturday, at the halfway mark in his marathon, he had moved 177 tonnes, walking an estimated 450,000 steps or 360 kilometres between his two piles. When I was watching him the day before, the pile from which he was shovelling was down to tabletop height and had a circumference about the size of a Mini Cooper; the pile to which he was adding was well above his head – which made the job onerous – and was about the size of a large SUV.

Although Mr. Pilon’s project is definitely absurdist in its inspiration, there is nothing casual about it. The artist is inspired by the myth of the Greek hero Sisyphus, who had displeased the gods and was sentenced to perpetually push a boulder uphill; each time he reached the summit, it would topple back under its own weight.

For this month-long performance, which Mr. Pilon entitles Sisyphe, the artist is interested in the interpretation of the myth by the French novelist and existentialist philosopher Albert Camus. The writer argued Sisyphus was the ultimate absurdist hero because his challenge was to find purpose in a useless task. Camus imagined that, at the top of the hill, before the stone rolled back down, Sisyphus found happiness.

Mr. Pilon stages his Sisyphean task with high drama. The hall, where spectators gather quietly on well-spaced benches, is shrouded in darkness except for the illuminated centre where Mr. Pilon works. The Montreal band

Meanwhile, the silent Mr. Pilon shovels as though enacting an ancient ritual, slowly and methodically, pausing for emphasis, sometimes completing an extra lap around his largest pile, tidying fallen sand with a rake or, in his most visually powerful gesture, throwing a spadeful of swirling sand up into the spotlight.

He also carves shapes in the pile with the spade, as though creating miniature cliffs, paths and landscapes.

Occasionally, he extends his spade to a spectator, inviting them to come into his circle and help. In the period I watched, he tried this twice, both times, as it happened, with middle-aged women who scooped up a feeble half-full spade and plopped it low down on the pile. Apparently, a man in the audience felt, as I did, that this was not sufficiently helpful to a fellow human who had tonnes more to move. This spectator stepped forward voluntarily and moved two solid shovels’ worth before Mr. Pilon took back the tool, staring quietly but deliberately into his helper’s face – as he did each time he ended these small moments of audience participation.

It occurred to me that in a more casual, less ritualized setting, people might have felt comfortable to roll up their sleeves and get digging. Mr. Pilon has been working on the concept for several years, motivated by his bereavement after his partner was killed in a 2017 car accident, but staging it during the pandemic does make one central question all the more pressing: Is the shovelling the performer’s solo burden or should the community pitch in?

The piece has some of the aesthetic calm of a Japanese rock garden, where raking the gravel is ritualized, but also harks back to the heyday of body art in the 1970s. In that work, artists enacted physically painful or hugely lengthy performances as though to make literal the notion that one must suffer for one’s art.

There is also a certain black humour to the piece – yes, he is just shovelling sand – although Mr. Pilon performs it with deep seriousness. The point is that the task is pointless: The meaning is in what we think about it. Admission to the hall is free – with proof of vaccination – and you can stay as long as you like watching Mr. Pilon.

I suppose if one timed it correctly, one might witness the emotional moment where one pile is finished and this latter-day Sisyphus must turn and start again on his 50 tonnes of sand.

Mr. Pilon has been working on the concept for several years, motivated by his bereavement after his partner was killed in a 2017 car accident, but staging it during the pandemic does make one central question all the more pressing: Is the shovelling the performer’s solo burden or should the community pitch in?