The Same Problem

The Same Problem is a series of collaborative projects with artist Aleesa Cohene that emerge through the creation of an experimental field, one that permits us to ask artistic and philosophical questions we fear have no answers, or answers we do not like.



Creation is driven not by medium, but rather through an evolving methodology that responds to various problems we face as artists, allowing us to follow hunches and take risks with materials and creative processes we feel unable to do alone. Together the works create loose, unstable portraits of a character suspended in a series of frustrations, disillusionments, and wrong choices.


The Same Problem currently comprises a suite of seven works in a diversity of artistic media produced over the last decade, including video, scent, text, choreography and painting.


The body of works traces the emotional and conceptual struggles of an individual — in turns performed by Nemer, actors in found film material, a solo dancer (performed by Mairi Grieg, pictured above), a potted fern, and the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke — developing a unique artistic and affective vocabulary that runs parallel to our solo artistic vernaculars.

Individual works have been exhibited in group exhibitions at the Frankfurter Kunstverein (Frankfurt), the Hebbel am Ufer Theater (Berlin), the Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto), and in media art festivals in Canada, Germany, France, and Japan. Exhibitions dedicated to the ensemble of works that make up The Same Problem have been mounted at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and the Dunlop Art Gallery, both in Canada.