{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02889784946236559, 'fraction_numerical': 0.010752688172043012, 'mean_word_length': 5.830275229357798, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Carol Sawyer: The Natalie Brettschneider Archive by Vancouver Art Gallery (review)

The Natalie Brettschneider Archive, at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2017–2018, deftly weaves together archival fact and archival fiction to craft an exhibition that tells a story about one (fictional) woman, a genre-blurring performance artist named Natalie Brettschneider, and her connections to a wider network of (actual) creative women. Visual artist Carol Sawyer’s installation resembles a historical display constructed from documentary traces and other evidence left behind by Canadian women artists who were active in the early 20th century. Sawyer has spent the past two decades creating and documenting multimedia performances that feature Brettschneider. As part of this body of work, Sawyer has produced a rich range of records, including juvenilia, correspondence, official documents, photographs, and moving images. Within the exhibition, these records manifest as a child’s notebook filled with imaginative doodles, 8 mm and 16 mm “found” historical footage,1 and other convincingly “archival” documents. During the same 20-year period, Sawyer undertook extensive archival research in various regional and national archival institutions, including the City of Surrey Archives, the Vancouver Art Gallery Archives, Carleton University Archives and Research Collections, the City of Victoria Archives, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Gallery of Canada. There, she found archival