2020 - 2021 PROGRAMMING — Galerie VAV Gallery

GALERIE VAV GALLERY

2020 - 2021 PROGRAMMING

ONLINE RESIDENCY 1

EXHIBITION: WINTER 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
OCÉANE BUXTON
WILLIAM HUMPHREY
HANNAH FERGUSON
ALFRED MUSZYNSKI
REBECCA ELIAS
CHRISTINE WHITE

(Slide 1-2)

Rebeca Elias, Buenas Noches, 2021.

Rebeca Elias is a film production student from Paraguay. Before moving to Montreal in 2017, she explored her city and started questioning about gaze, memory and movement. Participated in both school and professional films, mostly focused on sound and electroacoustics. She is interested in expanding her boundaries of storytelling, exploring her identity and the transforming relationship with her city.

(Slide 3-9)

Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, 2021.

3) Just like the rest of us, Octane’s body works the natural way.
She prefers to get her body rocking by using nothing but natural products.

4) I wonder what Octane is cooking... Rumors scream that she is terrible. I never know if to believe the gossip mill or not but I think she is a terrible judge of character. The community who takes her class seem to love her, but I haven't been able to convince myself of this. I mean, I think she's terrific. I find her teaching to be fascinating and a little bit hypnotic. Of course, I like her because I already know she's good at what she does.

5) On a tropical vacation! Octane will never forget the memories she accumulates from traveling the world. Even the car’s air conditioning becomes a part of the surrounding nature. A typical trip involves traveling to the tropics for a week. Yet no matter where I go, I always use the same Web site hoster: My Website. In case you’re not familiar with My Website, it’s the most versatile and affordable website hosting provider on the market. The platform not only gives you access to free domain names and free back-end.

9) Proof Octane Lavabo has a boyfriend:

Octane: Hi babe! You are a great boyfriend. I am happy to see you.
Him: I was just thinking how lucky I am to have you in my life. I just want to show you what you mean to me. I want to make you happy. You are so important to me.
Octane: Yes you are. You have always been a good boyfriend. You take good care of me.

(Slide 10-13)

Christine White, Slump Test, 2021.

Christine White is completing her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts at Concordia University in Intermedia with a minor in Sociology. Her practice explores how social science and art can merge to challenge dominant knowledge systems. With a curiosity towards the social world combined with a passion for sustainability, her desire to connect with others and use recycled materials comes through in her work. Currently she is an intern for the CARE Project at Concordia where she is researching alongside team members to explore the ways the Fine Arts Department engages with sustainable materials and practices.

Rebeca Elias, Buenas Noches, Online Residency 1, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views.

Rebeca Elias, Buenas Noches, Online Residency 1, 2021.

3) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

4) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

5) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

6) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

7) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

8) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

9) Océane Buxton, OCTANE EXPOSED, Online Residency 1, 2021.

Christine White, Slump Test, Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson

on woolgathering / gleaning:
.
i. march 2020
.
ii. melba cuddy-keane, “mind-wandering and mindfulness: a cognitive approach to mrs. dalloway and to the lighthouse,” virginia woolf, ed. james acheson
.
iii. collected things, early spring
.
iv. annotations to e. cobham brewer’s definition of “woolgathering”
.
v. field kit
.
vi. notes on woolgathering and agnes varda’s film “the gleaners and i”
.
vii. jean-francois millet, the gleaners (etching)
.
viii. october 2019
.
ix. virginia woolf, to the lighthouse, p. 49

on walking:
.
ii. rebecca solnit, “labyrinths and cadillacs: walking into the realm of the symbolic,” in wanderlust: a history of walking
.
iii. mapping, test print, etching and aquatint, 2020
.
iv. fran tonkiss on walter benjamin, “spatial stories: subjectivity in the city”
.
vi. jane bennett, vibrant matter: a political ecology of things

on shells / husks:
.
ii. Newsom, Joanna. “Nearer the Heart of Things.” Interview by Erik Davis. Arthur Magazine, no. 25, Winter 2006,
.
iv. Woolf, Virginia. Street Haunting. San Francisco: Westgate Press, 1930.
.
vi. Cardiff, Janet. “Her Long Black Hair.” In The Walk Book. Audio walk, 2005. Compact disc.
.
vii. test prints for book about husks, etching and aquatint, 2020

field kit:
.
i. twine net
.
ii. cheesecloth/beeswax
.
iii. roll of cotton twine

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: i. march 2020. Online Residency 1, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: ii. melba cuddy-keane, “mind-wandering and mindfulness: a cognitive approach to mrs. dalloway and to the lighthouse,” virginia woolf, ed. james acheson. Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: iii. collected things, early spring. Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: iv. annotations to e. cobham brewer’s definition of “woolgathering” . Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: v. field kit. Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: vi. notes on woolgathering and agnes varda’s film “the gleaners and i”. Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: vii. jean-francois millet, the gleaners (etching).

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: viii. october 2019.

Hannah Ferguson, on woolgathering / gleaning: ix. virginia woolf, to the lighthouse, p. 49.

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: ii. rebecca solnit, “labyrinths and cadillacs: walking into the realm of the symbolic,” in wanderlust: a history of walking

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: iii. mapping, test print, etching and aquatint, 2020.

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: fran tonkiss on walter benjamin, “spatial stories: subjectivity in the city”

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: 2020.

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: vi. jane bennett, vibrant matter: a political ecology of things

Hannah Ferguson, on walking: 2020.

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: 2020.

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: ii. Newsom, Joanna. “Nearer the Heart of Things.” Interview by Erik Davis. Arthur Magazine, no. 25, Winter 2006

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: iv. Woolf, Virginia. Street Haunting. San Francisco: Westgate Press, 1930.

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: Online Residency 1, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: vi. Cardiff, Janet. “Her Long Black Hair.” In The Walk Book. Audio walk, 2005. Compact disc.

Hannah Ferguson, on shells / husks: vii. test prints for book about husks, etching and aquatint, 2020

Hannah Ferguson, field kit: Online Residency 1, 2021.

Alfred Muszynski
Cultural Flooding
2021

Alfred Muszynski is in his third year at Concordia working towards a BFA in Studio Arts. He is an aspiring artist and curator based in Montreal/Tiohtiá:ke. Alfred is an avid collector of digital images and has built his practice around his passion for the digital medium and internet culture. Alfred has curated two exhibitions for Le Livart; Vert and Voir en transparence, one of them in partnership with the ARTCH festival. More recently, he curated a public exhibit with Art Souterrain which was shown in the streets of the Quartier Latin. He has recently been developing his practice as a creator of digital images and poet on his instagram. Alfred works with digital mediums as well as video, painting and performance.

Alfred Muszynski, Cultural Flooding, 2021. Online Residency 1, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Alfred Muszynski, Cultural Flooding, 2021. Online Residency 1, 2021.

(Slide 1-3)
William Humphrey
Algo Ballet
2021

William Humphrey is a video artist, performer, organizer, and DJ residing in Tiohtiá:ke, Montréal. He is of colonizer european-canadian heritage. His work pursues a form of visual thinking opposed to the traditional continuity through time/space in cinema. He is actively experimenting with in-camera editing techniques, frame rates variations, and movement cycles. His work attempts to breach the visible world as we know and see it into the world of unseen sights, unheard sounds, unfelt memories, unknown unknowns. He meticulously edit and process the images together to disassemble the pro-filmic into light events; something proceeding the actual. Process(ing) becomes a project using different digital methods of recapitulating footage to synthesize physical and virtual objects. Themes in his work include mysticism, travelogue, science fiction, and critical evaluations of techno-infrastructures.

(Slide 4-5)
Alfred Muszynski, Cultural Flooding, 2021. Online Residency 1, 2021.

William Humphrey, Algo Ballet, Online Residency 1, 2021.

Alfred Muszynski, Cultural Flooding, 2021. Online Residency 1, 2021.

AS WE ARE
BLACK HISTORY MONTH EXHIBITION

What defines a black person? Is it a physical trait? Is it the amount of melanin in their skin or is it the number of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air lines they can recite? There is no definitive answer to that question as the black identity is multi-layered in identities and personal experiences.

Featurinng works of photography, visual art, and video montage, “As We Are” brings together a collective of rising black artists. With the notion of self-exploration and sub-themes of acceptance, community, and vulnerability, the artists express in their works their unique voices and experiences they believe encapsulates the many realities of their black identity.

Being black goes beyond crossing a checklist of characteristics that would certify the obtention of the fictional black pass. Blackness is a unique experience and black individuals are meant to be cherished and unapologetically accepted for who they are.

Text by Wendy-Alexin Vancool

EXHIBITION: FEB 22 - MAR 8, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
LAURA KAMUGISHA
KIONI SASAKI-PICOU
RENÉE MATTHEWS
EMEM ETTI
MORGANE POEZEVARA-STEVENS
SYDNIE BAYNES

Photographs of the artworks are unavailable; the archives contain only the accompanying written texts.

What does 'Black' mean to you?

Laura Kamugisha: Being a Black woman is to be the pillar of society, but not having a seat at the table. Even though you built the table.

'Hyphen' (Trait d’Union) directed by Laura Kamugisha
Link here: 7 documentaires portés par le regard de personnes noires à voir en ligne | Radio-Canada

Marie-Chantal's life is split in two. She has lived half her life in Rwanda and the other half in Canada. She is a political refugee and my mother. Hyphen' (Trait d’Union) explores the notions of identity, attachments and the concept of “home”.

Laura Kamugisha is a filmmaker of Congo-Rwandan origin based in Montreal in Canada. Her films explore notions of cultural identity, memories, and intergenerational baggage all through visual poetry. She has a bachelor's degree in Film production at Concordia University and would describe her projects - and herself, as sensitive, stubborn, and intuitive. Her works have been presented at various festivals throughout Quebec and internationally, including the Festival Nouveau Cinéma (FNC), the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) and Arica Nativa Film Festival. She is currently working on two short fiction films while interning at Midi La Nuit, the double Academy Award nominated production company, founded by Annick Blanc and Maria Gracia Turgeon. Hyphen (Trait d’Union) is her first documentary.

What does 'Black' mean to you?

Kioni Sasaki-Picou: Being black means walking this earth as the embodiment of resilience, creativity and power. It is sometimes my biggest insecurity but mostly the part of my identity I am most proud of. My roots are the source of my strength in everyday life and maintains my connection to community.

There's Knots in My Hair by Kioni Sasaki-Picou

For this work, I wanted to play around with the innocence of childlike behaviour but with the ignorance of the insensitivities. A recall of mine and other black kids' experiences growing up in a white environment. I used colourful pencils as a nostalgic material from classrooms and gave each model the hairstyle they rocked when they were younger. Whereas the quotes come from conversations with each model around their hair being reason of disconnect.

Kioni Sasaki-Picou is a Toronto born photographer currently based in Montreal with her main tool being a 35mm camera. Currently she is working towards obtaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Concordia University in hopes to develop technical and curatorial skills. Throughout her work you will see consistent themes of identity through race, gender and representation of the black body. Being of Japanese and Trinidadian descent, Kioni uses her experiences and conversations with others to expand spaces for bodies shamed or misrepresented by society. She looks to explore her personal and others relationship with themselves in regards to race. Kioni hopes to create to give those comfort who resonate with her work as well as aid the growth of the black creatives community. She believes greatly in the power of community and views it as a necessity throughout path of healing.

What does 'Black' mean to you?

Renée Matthews: To me being Black is a constant flux of joy and fear.

An Experiment by Renee Mathews

This installation is the culmination of an experiment designed to explore the minds of black artists. A series of emotionally provoking questions surrounding the topics of identity, safety, love, and community are given as prompts for self-reflection. Throughout the question period, subjects are not allowed to talk and can only respond via the materials provided. The video documents the emotional labour of the subjects and their creative processes.

Renée Mathews is an interdisciplinary artist with a practice that taps into drawing, sculpture, collage, writing, photography, and movement. Driven by an insatiable and often childlike curiosity, her thoughts and therefore her work tend to revolve around concepts of time, spirituality, and inner worlds. Born in Toronto and raised in Mississauga, Renée now lives in Montréal where she is pursuing a BFA in Art Education at Concordia University.

What does 'Black' mean to me?

Emem Etti: 'Black' is a way of moving through the world. It is an identifier, and a means of community. My Blackness, beyond the colour of my skin, has no structure and is ever-evolving. There is no right or wrong way of being Black; there is just being. I find comfort in the fact that being 'Black' is whatever I want it to be; I can find solace through the past and my ancestors, mold the future through Afrofuturism, and challenge the present, all through my Blackness and art.

Untitled Anonymous by Emem Etti

'Untitled Anonymous' is an exploration and documentation of being. The photo series dives into vulnerability, shared identity, and fragmented-self. Identity has always been a prevalent topic within the Black community, and I myself, have struggled with identity and a sense of belonging. 'Untitled Anonymous' extends this conversation into a video medium and challenges the audience to explore what 'self' is, and how we present self to the world. Conceptually, I wanted to explore realms of afro-surrealism and absurdity within this series.

Emem Etti is a Nigerian born, Vancouver-raised filmmaker and photographer currently undergoing a BFA in film production at Concordia University. As a femme growing up in a traditional Nigerian home in Canada, the dichotomy between the two cultures fueled various projects she has taken on over the past few years and further pushed her to pursue storytelling in the form of visual arts. Emem strives to create work that challenges the notion of black portrayal, femme representation, and femme-produced films as well as explore the realms of Afrofuturism, surrealism and expanded cinema. Although specializing in fictional art, Emem also uses videography and photography to document various forms of collective human experiences.

What does 'Black' mean to me?

Morgane Poezevara-Stevens: That I have a powerful history, and I'm proud to be me.

Kinks and coils by Morgane Poezevara-Stevens

Kinks and coils is a performance art piece I staged sharing audio recordings of interviews of black people who have experienced texturism in social and work contexts. During the recounting of these stories from black people of diverse hair textures, shades and cultural heritage, I set up a hair relaxing performance. In preparation for this hair straightening process, I bought Spray it Straight from the ethnic hair section at a big box pharmacy. I spray and tare at my scalp, brushing through my curls. Eurocentric beauty ideals go so far as to police the curls, kinks and coils that braid black people's history into crowns.

As a bi-racial, black, woman (she/her) working in Montreal, these identities intersect and shift my perspective when approaching all subject matter, I can only speak from my experience as a settler on this land. I’m an Art Education student working primarily in acrylic painting as well as sculpture and performance art. In my performance art practice, I enjoy creating immersive experiences for the viewer in which everyday scenarios are restaged to understand the perspective of minority’s reality’s, exposing my socio-political views on contemporary issues within the scope of western colonial politics. Topics such as; the sociological construct of gender binaries and egocentrism have been treated in my most recent performances. This practice intertwines with my interests in sculpture and recreating everyday objects that hold oppressive power, such as I.D cards for example. Currently, I have been drawing attention to the notion of privilege and popping the delusions created by socio-economic status. More specifically, treating the urgency of the climate emergency and global pandemic we are currently living through and the role socio-economic class plays in survival.

What does 'Black' mean to you?

Sydnie Baynes: Being black means to remain resilient through injustice while keeping true to my experiences and culture as these attributes contribute to the person I am and always will be; a black Canadian woman.

For White Folks Only by Sydnie Baynes

Written piece at the end of For White Folks Only
“Come listen all you gals and boys, I's jist from Tuckyhoe,
I'm going to sing a little song, my name's Jim Crow,
Weel about and turn about and do jis so,
Eb'ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow
But he soon jumped up again, and “gan for me to feel”
Says I, “ Go away, you nigger, or I'll skin you like an eel.”
Weel about and turn about and do jis so,
Eb'ry time I weel about and jump Jim Crow.
I'm so glad dat I'm a niggar, and don't you wish you was too”

Sydnie is an artist born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. She’s a graduating student from Dawson College in Cinema Communications, currently studying Film Animation offered by the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. Sydnie’s work as a visual artist reflects her interpretation of whimsicality, by her consistent use of fine lines and colours. Sydnie’s projects help her express herself in times of questioning by allowing her to showcase how she sees herself, regardless of what her physical self may resemble to others. Consistency shows in Sydnie’s art through experimental elements, and recurring images of the female body. Sydnie’s intentions conclude becoming more involved in the artistic community in hopes of creating stronger ties and bonds with other locals to collaborate personal projects.

ARCHIVING IDENTITY: A COLLABORATION WITH SOMEWHERE GALLERY

March 18-25, 2021

The study of oneself is a unique process.

The act of exploring our identities through materiality and personal archives is present in many artistic forms and personal practices around the globe. Throughout time the study of oneself is at the forefront of our interests and our longing to understand our humanly purpose. When we find ourselves with an abundance of spare time, we begin questioning the deeper parts of our inner selves. Often, this research can begin through the personal study of familial relationships and inhabited environments. While immersing oneself in research and creating connections with our surroundings we develop a form of self representation to identify with. We are always in search of our place of belonging.

Visual mediums can offer a powerful method to explore identity. Through imagery that is deconstructed, transformed, invented, catalogued, etc, we create a file of our past, present and future. A continuous journey of making our intangible inner selves tangible. As art makers and conceptual thinkers, questioning personal meaning while existing in a community can offer the attention and significance to mundane attributes that surround us.

Sometimes we are led through a journey of self exploration through our subconscious interests, or through moments of interlude-when we are the closest to ourselves and the exterior feels so far away

Text by Katherine Parthimos

EXHIBITION: MAR 18 - 25, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

CURATION
KATHERINE PARTHIMOS
JULIA-AUTUMN SAVOY
CAROLINA LARROSA
TYRA MARIA TRONO

GROUP
PAULINA BEREZA
KEVIN RAMEAU
CLAUDIA GOULET-BLAIS
FENG
DAVID NADEAU

David Nadeau
Tree (01-35)
Gelatin Silver Print dyed in Fir Tree, 8” x 10” in.
2021

Taking down the green.

What is the legacy of a Christmas tree after the holiday season has ended? Following this simple question I investigated the rapport that exists between the symbol and the object. The custom originated and continues within homes where the tree becomes statuesque and holds properties, which are removed after the end of the holiday when the municipal workers carry the tree to be transformed into mulch.

Following this idea, I wanted to create an archive of the trees soon to be disposed that were found in my direct environment. The cataloguing was similarly mundane to the labour intensive process of disposing and transforming the trees, it acted as a sort of reverse production in which care was taken to up-cycle the by-product of the celebration.

This holiday engenders an industry of temporary statues, embodying the tree as it grows in a farm, being reduced to only a symbol during the holidays and rejected as a mere tree when it is thrown out on the sidewalk.

David Nadeau, Tree (01-35), Gelatin Silver Print dyed in Fir Tree, 8” x 10” in., 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

David Nadeau, Tree (01-35), Gelatin Silver Print dyed in Fir Tree, 8” x 10” in., 2021.

Feng
Piscine
Digital Print
2020

I find it very interesting how my relationship with China has somehow become an exotic one: I am viewing it through highly stylized representations made by others, but I realize I am on the other side, trying to gather bits and pieces that reflect back to me, finding “Chinese-ness” in a different land.

Piscine is a sarcastic confrontation of the overlap of my queer and Asian identities that aims to normalize the idea of being queer in a traditional Chinese narrative. It embodies the search of belonging in a land alienated from family, country, and self. With Piscine, I try to seek space for my identity to exist in normativity while finding simultaneous comfort in exile.

Feng, Piscine, Digital Print, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Feng, Piscine, Digital Print, 2020.

Kevin Rameau

YouTube_Internet_Explorer.exe
Mix Medium on Canvas, Green Masking Tape, 3'8"X3'
2020

SoundCloud_Internet Explorer.exe
Mix Medium on Canvas, Green Masking Tape, 4'8"X3'
2020

Music lover, the rapper figure is recurrent in Kevin's work.

Thus, "Lamborghini Mixtape" presents the personal SoundCloud page of his alter ego "Homie Kuan" and gives us access to an imaginary discography through which the artist evokes the biased gaze that is often cast on black singers.

Kevin Rameau, SoundCloud_Internet Explorer.exe, Mix Medium on Canvas, Green Masking Tape, 4'8"X3', 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Kevin Rameau, YouTube_Internet_Explorer.exe, Mix Medium on Canvas, Green Masking Tape, 3'8"X3', 2020.

Paulina Bereza
Looking back, I see no changes
Handwoven polyester and cotton, cast concrete, 40”W x 30”H x 4”L
2020

When considering this project, Looking back, I see no Changes., I chose to delve into an inquiry about perception and gaze in relation to memory. Inspired by the accelerated surveillance implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, I considered the symbiotic relationship between surveilled and surveilling. This work attempts to materialize a personal data collection, by superimposing and processing photos in a non-linear way. Combining images of places near and far in order to create an abstract manifestation of a self-algorithm.

Paulina Bereza, Looking back, I see no changes, Handwoven polyester and cotton, cast concrete, 40”W x 30”H x 4”L, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Paulina Bereza, Looking back, I see no changes, Handwoven polyester and cotton, cast concrete, 40”W x 30”H x 4”L, 2020.

Claudia Goublet-Blais
Adaptors Study I
image-based book, 5” x 7”
2020

Adaptors Study I is an image-based book that looks at behaviours and movements that express internal state through performance and recontextualization of the body. This study is part of a larger on-going project called Proxemics and Kinesics where through images and an Index, the artist has redefined and reappropriated a method of categorization to conduct a visual study. The study looks at movement and the effects that physical space has on gendered behaviour, gestures and reactions. Adaptors Study I is an attempt to define a single category of gestures through photographic performance and physical layering of images allowing for the recontextualizing of the body in different spaces.

Claudia Goublet-Blais, Adaptors Study I, image-based book, 5” x 7”, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Claudia Goublet-Blais

ONLINE RESIDENCY 2

EXHIBITION: WINTER 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
GEMMA STEVENS
BENNI
HANNAH BERGER
ISABELLE MAE-YEN BREDT

Gemma Stevens
2020-2021

I'm Gemma Stevens, I'm an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is primarily rooted in photography. Within my practice I explore the reciprocal physical and psychological relationships that we foster to space and to place. I aim to explore how meaning can be attached to space through the exploration of the local and the familiar.

My practice is primarily rooted in photography. I explore themes pertaining to place and space and how we imbue these spaces with our own experiences. These images are from an ongoing exploration into my relationship with memory. After suffering from multiple concussions my ability to retain information has significantly suffered. The emotions that come with this loss are overwhelming and hard to navigate.

A final post concerning my apparently eclectic practice... Have you ever tried natural dyeing or eco printing? These are some images that have inspired the work I produced with the VAV. The process of collecting and walking is something inherent to my practice, and being able to produce colour and print using the natural elements I find is just a way I can express how powerful this process is. If you want to learn some easy, accessible dye recipes that you can make from grocery store items, stay tuned for our exhibition, coming up soon!!!

Thanks for having me.
Gemma

Gemma Stevens, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Gemma Stevens, 2020.

(Slide 1-6)
Gemma Stevens

Another recent interest of mine has been to look at the lifecycles of ecosystems, and the organisms that contribute to continuing cycles of growth and Decay.

Growth and Decay
2020

Decay and the growth that comes from it are necessary to the lifecycle of the
ecosystem. Fungi and lichens that absorb nutrients from their hosts, whether living or dead, make possible the composting of non living matter and the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide into forms usable by plants and animals. These organisms grow where many other things cannot; on bare rock, on tree bark,
in the ashy remains of a wildfire’s destruction. They bring new life in the midst of various decaying matter, slowly colonizing desolate places, emerging from death.
Within this project I have isolated these organisms against a black expanse, separating them from the ecosystems that depend on them. They become isolated fragments that invite the viewer to both gaze upon the intricate life that emerges from the darkness of decay and to meditate on the cyclical nature of life. Acting in this respect as iconic vanitas devices, these entities allow us to reflect on nature’s degeneration processes and how the life cycle of an ecosystem echoes the living conditions of man. We are reminded that all that lives must die, but that death is not a true ending.

A final post concerning my apparently eclectic practice... Have you ever tried natural dyeing or eco printing? These are some images that have inspired the work I produced with the VAV. The process of collecting and walking is something inherent to my practice, and being able to produce colour and print using the natural elements I find is just a way I can express how powerful this process is. If you want to learn some easy, accessible dye recipes that you can make from grocery store items, stay tuned for our exhibition, coming up soon!!!

Thanks for having me.
Gemma

(Slide 7-8)
Hannah Berger

This is Hannah Berger, I’ll be sharing some work that speaks to the distress and isolation of the past year using the visual language of rituals and traditions as well as a bit of my past work.

how can we put the year and all its heartache to rest?
as the past year hasn’t allowed for any cathartic in-person celebrations, during my residency with the vav gallery, I’ve made candles out of written confessions, obituaries and journal entries.

Gemma Stevens, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Gemma Stevens, 2020.

Hannah Berger, 2021.

benni

benni (they/elle) is a queer artist, community worker, facilitator, and settler working and living in Tio'tia: ke / Mooniyang / Montréal. they are a writer for L'Injecteur at L'Association Québécoise pour la promotion de la santé des personnes utilisatrices de drogues (AQPSUD) . benni uses their lived experience with drug use, art, and advocacy work to advocate for harm reduction and meaningful participation of people who use drugs in policy and practice.

this is part of a larger project I've been working on with for this image we tested out overlaying an image of harm reduction material over alex's beautiful photograph of an overdose memorial we made in an abandoned space.

working with alex is a dream

benni, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

benni, 2020.

Isabelle Mae-Yen Bredt

My name is Isabelle and for the weekend I will be sharing my project entitled « Things I want ». The work is an exploration of value embedded within documentation of art and material. I wish to implicate our intimate bodies through base material and things that feel weighted in personal, collective and bodily history XD. But but enough of me enjoy the sun!!!

Isabelle Mae-Yen Bredt, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Isabelle Mae-Yen Bredt, 2021.

SOMETHING ABOUT STITCHES

“One is not born, but rather becomes a body. And one is not born, but rather, becomes a glitch.” - Legacy Russel, Glitch Feminism.

Do you ever sit so still, that you almost feel your arms float? Or look so intently at something that its very atoms shake and your vision goes blurry?

This collection of work explores intimate dissociation from our new daily lives, stemming from over a year living in a global pandemic. The artists speak to a nostalgia and need for physical contact when stuck in an online everyday. Student collective, HAAL.400., performs on, and with Zoom. Out of sync with each other and embracing the glitch from multiple perspectives.

Madison Strizic, an artist who worked with bread way before the pandemic made baking bread a trend, braids challah, it’s remnants, sealed on parchment paper, become Baker’s Monotype (no.2 & no.3).

Louis-Emile Lalonde’s paintings nod to one of the only joys this winter; the snow sculptures in Montreal’s parks, while Alejandro Torres wraps us in a warm blanket, allowing us to daydream about seasons to come.

Florence Pin’s series of words and photographs encourages a sense of familiarity, of nostalgia, a return to a pre-pandemic world. Paired with Marie-Andree Macameau’s Pas de soleil, pas de Marie and Nadia Mariyan Smith’s To See the Earth Before the End of the World, we hone in on the glitch, the snippet of reality in our interconnected, intangible world. A glitch, not revealing another place, but what was already there that had been so long overlooked.

“I became myself, I found my body, through becoming, embodying, a glitch.”

Text written by one of our Board of Directors, Chloë Lalonde

EXHIBITION: MAR 31 - APR 16, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
ALEJANDRO TORRES
HAAL.400
FLORENCE PIN
LOUIS-EMILE LALONDE
MADISON STRIZIC
MARIE-ANDRÉE MACAMEAU
NADIA MARIYAN SMITH

Marie-Andrée Macameau
Pas de Soleil, Pas de Marie
Virtual Photographic book
2020-2021

I have been going through moments when it feels like all sense of self has just gone with the wind and now, I’m being blown around trying to find something to hold on to – to make sense of my life. This series explores the themes of depression, isolation and anxiety. I am exploring my own experience of depression through images, documenting everyday life and banal moments in a domestic setting. This body of work also includes still life and self-portrait photography. This project is an effort to illustrate the feeling of self-lost, emptiness and lingering sadness. Pas de soleil, Pas de Marie is a therapeutic process and an attempt to find healing.

This project is an effort to illustrate the feeling of self-lost, emptiness and lingering sadness. Pas de soleil, Pas de Marie is a therapeutic process and an attempt to find healing. Her work offers a representation of vulnerable and healing moments.

Marie-Andrée Macameau, Pas de Soleil, Pas de Marie, Virtual Photographic book, 2020-2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Marie-Andrée Macameau, Pas de Soleil, Pas de Marie, Virtual Photographic book, 2020-2021.

FLorence Pin
Fleurs D’Août
Photography
2020

Fleurs D’Août is an intuitive space for reconciliation. It’s the nostalgia used as a central ground, searching for the possibility of softness. It’s a reconnection to childhood memories and land in order to create space for acceptance.

Fleur d’Août is an intuitive space for reconciliation. It’s the nostalgia used as a central ground, searching for the possibility of softness.

My artistic process consists of exploring the relationships between the body, the object and the space and how it relates to memory and nostalgia.

FLorence Pin, Fleurs D’Août, Photography, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

FLorence Pin, Fleurs D’Août, Photography, 2020.

Louis Emile Lalonde
I see Faces in the Park
Oil on canvas, 36” x 24”
2021

This piece was created in reaction to the armies of snowmen, which populated Montreal’s parks as of January 2021. The COVID19 pandemic has transformed many areas in the city into desolate liminal spaces, devoid of human interactions. However, parks have become sanctuaries where one can escape the dryness of isolation and experience urban nature. As such, the arrival of winter and its annual activities have resulted in the proliferation of snow sculptures. I was interested in the snowmen as slightly creepy, distorted humanoid vessels for joyful memories. Their sight is both heart- warming and disenchanting as they represent a playful endeavor in these eerie and uncertain times. My piece depicts both the snowmen as humans and humans as snowmen, reflecting the humanist and existentialist symbolism of this creative ritual.

This piece was created in reaction to the armies of snowmen, which populated Montreal’s parks as of January 2021. Often referencing dystopian and surrealist art, I create visual allegories that sit between realism and fiction.

Documentation currently unavailable.
HAAL.400
Heather Reid, Abi Stushnoff, Alex Pruneau, Louis-Félix D’Amours
Digression Cabaret in Sum
Video, 30:00mins
2020

Digression Cabaret in Sum is a thirty-minute video gathered from three one-hour Zoom improvisational jams performed by our collective HAAL.400. Responding to the phrase “indulge in digression”, the collective focused on various performative gestures (including interpretive movement, mirroring, repeating, ect.) with low-resolution soundscapes, interchanging Zoom backgrounds and filters (i.e. “THE URGE TO PERFORM”), and numerous other idiosyncratic ideas. The phrase, “indulge in digression” arose from our reflections over three months of weekly discussions, jams, and open studios which, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, always occurred on the Zoom platform. The name, HAAL.400, resembles “HAL 9000”, the AI assistant from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick 1968). However, unlike HAL 9000, HAAL.400 requires human intervention. With this major difference aside, HAAL.400 and HAL9000 do share the common feature of aggregating knowledge into a central processing unit and both require computerized human intervention in this process. We see HAAL.400 as N.A.I., or Non-Artificial Intelligence, not to be confused with Narrow A.I.. With these semantic links, we bring our collaboration into a virtual philosophical dimension investigating digital collectivity, difference, playful resistance, and much more.

Louis Emile Lalonde, I see Faces in the Park, Oil on canvas, 36” x 24”, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Louis Emile Lalonde, I see Faces in the Park, Oil on canvas, 36” x 24”, 2021.

Madison Strizic

Baker’s Monotype no. 2
Bread print on baking parchment. 60 x 38 cm
2020

‍Baker’s Monotype no. 3
Bread print on baking parchment. 58 x 38.5 cm
2020

Informed by the artist’s Ashkenazi heritage, Baker’s Monotype no. 2 and 3 reference the symbolic nature of braiding challah in Judaism in order to conceive of bread as more than sustenance. Ingrained with significance, from the cultural to the political, social, and economic, bread has been associated with times of generosity and goodwill as often as it has been found rooted to the bleak, uncertain, and scarce. In this way, the impressions left on these sheets of baking parchment are as much traces of being with as they are reminders of being without; both a memory from a time in the past when we broke bread in each other’s company and the yearning to do so again someday.

Ingrained with significance, from the cultural to the political, social, and economic, bread has been associated with times of generosity and goodwill as often as it has been found rooted to the bleak, uncertain, and scarce.

Drawing on themes of reciprocity, comfort, and community, her work attempts to unravel and explore different ways of coming together and (be)coming a/part (of) through storytelling, conversation, and food.

Documentation currently unavailable.
Alejandro Torres
Intimacy & Casualty
video, 9:00mins
2021

I tend to forget where I am. My identity and the space I live in are continuously changing. It is when I perceive light and water interacting that I feel relief. Intimacy & Causality is a nostalgic recollection of emotions caused by pre-covid life and the outbreak; freedom and anxiety, love and fear, sadness and relief. An audiovisual daydream sequence recorded with an iPhone 8 in Montreal and San Jose del Cabo during 2020.

Madison Strizic, 2020. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Madison Strizic, 2020.

Nadia Mariyan Smith
In the Garden
Photography and Video, 1:49mins
2021

Drawing from poet Ed Roberson and his radical departure from the romantic landscape tradition, To See the Earth Before the End of the World places a sense of urgency on recognizing our rapidly evolving ways of experiencing life. Moving away from its intended use, I face the webcam both outwards and closer inwards, straying away from the normative display of the physical self on webcam. I specifically focus on the haptic nature of experience, and how that physicality is transforming while we increasingly live our day-to-day lives on screen. Importance is placed on the disconnection of our senses when on screen and attempts to express our longing for touch. I push haptic, physical experiences through the screen medium. I display a longing for a physical dimension of screen experience. I question our new reality, our new relationship to reality, our new screen sensibility.

Sound plays a role in our experience of physicality. I draw from composer Miya Masaoka’s use of biofeedback to produce “plant sounds” in real-time on a modular synthesizer. I extend this exploration of nature versus machine with the function of using my noisy 2011 MacBook laptop and it’s built in microphone to pick up the sounds of my exploration into the garden.

I specifically focus on the haptic nature of experience, and how that physicality is transforming while we increasingly live our day-to-day lives on screen.
They are interested in the complexities of individuation and often allude to the influences that impact their thought processes and inform their work.

Nadia Mariyan Smith, In the Garden, Photography and Video, 1:49mins, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Nadia Mariyan Smith, In the Garden, Photography and Video, 1:49mins, 2021.

SUMMER PHYSICAL RESIDENCY

EXHIBITION: SEPT 27 - OCT 15, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
ALICIA TURGEON
JOEL YOUNG
JEAN-PHILIPPE POIRIER

Alicia Turgeon
Handle with care
2021

The results of this physical residency are part of a larger investigation by artist Alicia Turgeon titled Handle with care. In this series, Turgeon explores found objects through the lenses of critical intimacy and radical care. It is a careful and sensitive exploration of used materials; collection, peeling back of layers, fragmentation, repurposing, and re-evaluation.

In these in-progress works, Turgeon presents a similar occurrence, by making the choice to inspire herself from decades old weaving manuals and blueprints found among her late grandparent’s belongings, she is deviating from a formal application and moving it away from its primary function. As much of a family portrait than a self-skilling process, each piece of material used, from her matriarchs’ old scarfs to stored-away fabrics and discarded cables, speak of generational gaps, untaught skills and the unassumed sides of reconciliation.

Alicia Turgeon is a multidisciplinary and neurodiverse artist based in Montréal, Québec. She is a BFA candidate in Sculpture at Concordia University where she was recently awarded a Sustainability Research Award (2020) and an Experimental Learning Grant (2020-2021) for her creative pursuits on the boundaries of authorship through open-design and DIY praxis. Past shows include local group exhibitions such as Past & Future at La Station a Mies van der Rohe designed former Esso gas station and Sweet Back Poetry 2 presented by Soft Square Gallery.

Alicia Turgeon, Handle with care, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Alicia Turgeon, Handle with care, 2021.

Alicia Turgeon, Handle with care, 202

Jean-Philippe Poirier
The Rainmaker
2021

Every day, when I came into the gallery, I walked around, looked at how my previous day of work was integrating, transforming the gallery space, how it breathed, how it evolved, how it lived. Looking at paper fragments that had fallen on the floor, searching for another place to hang them, in another form to transform them.

I created my own drawing tools in the form of very long fingers out of paper. I used those tools to draw with ink and to touch and feel the gallery, the world that I was creating. I terraformed the gallery in the first week of the residency, to accommodate the creature that will be emerging in the second week. This creature was made out of papers that had fallen on the floor or were picked from the wall. These resources were then grafted onto a hyperthermia blanket using embroidery thread. This creature ended up being a representation of water, making rain and waves sounds as it moved. The creature was also masked, or had its head bandaged, mending the bones of the head, a head that has been broken, mending a broken mind.

“All of my pieces come from the same universe, where I create these hybrids, part human, part animal, part machine. With those, I work on the link between humankind and its environment.

My work is also self-representative, trying to understand myself through my art, self-mythologizing. This journey brings me to use a variety of materials in my practice, knowing the limits of each one, mastering my art language through these limitations. Repeating subjects, objects, elements from one medium to another, each medium informing the other, each pushing the concepts further. I also started to bring some of my characters found in my drawing and painting in real life through performance art.”

Jean-Philippe Poirier, The Rainmaker, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Jean-Philippe Poirier, The Rainmaker, 2021.

Joel Young
Support
2021

Support is a sculptural installation featuring fired ceramic materials propped up by steel wire, concrete bricks and unfired earthenware clay.

What kinds of support do we take for granted in our lives? What structures do we rely on, both physical and emotional, to allow us to do what we do? During my residency at the VAV Gallery last summer, I played around with finished ceramic sculptures, trying to make them come to life using materials I had on hand. As I worked through the space, trying out different ways to prop up or position my work, I thought about how much support I get from the people in my life, and the institutions that I am a part of.

Stoneware, porcelain, and unglazed earthenware sculptures are formed by coiling and pinching. Abstract and figurative forms imitate parts of the human body in movement. Glazes and oxides are applied to the surfaces of the organic structures, emphasizing different surface characteristics. The materials used to support the fired ceramics have been manipulated in an intuitive way: stacking bricks, crocheting long steel chains, and hastily squeezing clay to raise the static figures from the ground brings the forms closer to the onlooker or passerby.

Joel Young is a ceramic and installation artist based in Montreal/Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang. He has worked as an independent musician for over ten years, and created the online journal Vague Magazine (2018). Joel’s ceramic and sculptural work has been shown as part of the group shows “The Suffering, Impractical Desire to Name,” (The Art Matters Festival, Montreal, 2019) and “what if x = fun FUN Spectacular,” (The Diving Bell, Montreal, 2019). He is working towards his BFA in Studio Arts at Concordia University.

Joel Young, Support, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Joel Young, Support, 2021.

THE HUMAN EVENT

The Anthropocene can be described as a geological epoch characterized by the substantial impact the human species has had on Earth. While it has not been officially recognized as an epoch, it is a term that has become popularized when speaking about our effects on the environment and the inevitable doomsday we’ve created for ourselves.

This exhibition opposes the idea that humans are the be-all and end-all of life on Earth and instead offers an alternative; we are just a brief moment in the history of life on Earth. The artists featured in the human event invite the viewer to examine our current relationships with land, nature and life cycles, imagine the future of our existence and question our significance on this planet.

Exhibition name and Curatorial statement by Kassandra Walters

EXHIBITION: OCT 20 - NOV 5, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
MARIANNE CHARLEBOIS
MALTE LEANDER
ALEXANDER HARPER
KIMBERLY ORJUELA
INIGO LASHERAS
DAN YANG
JULIA MONACO
QUANG HAI NGUYEN
SARA MERICLE

(Slide 1-2)

Marianne Charlebois⁠, Frammeti2⁠, 2021.

(Slide 3-4)

Sara Mericle⁠, Trace Tile⁠, 2021.

(Slide 5-7)

Quang Hai Nguyen, to: the moon⁠, 2021.

(Slide 8)

Alexander Harper⁠, Chapel Hill⁠, 2021.
⁠

(Slide 9-15)

Iñigo Lasheras, The Nine Planetary Boundaries, 2021.

(Slide 16-17)

Kimberly Orjuela, Dirt heals, 2021.

(Slide 18-19)

Dan Yang, The Making of A Lettuce, 2021.

(Slide 20-21)

Julia Monaco, Tetraodontidae Polypropylene⁠, 2021.

Marianne Charlebois⁠, Frammeti2⁠, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Marianne Charlebois⁠, Frammeti2⁠, 2021.

Sara Mericle⁠, Trace Tile⁠, 2021.

⁠

Sara Mericle⁠, Trace Tile⁠, 2021.

Quang Hai Nguyen, to: the moon⁠, 2021.

Alexander Harper⁠, Chapel Hill⁠, 2021.
⁠

Iñigo Lasheras, The Nine Planetary Boundaries, 2021.

Kimberly Orjuela, Dirt heals, 2021.

Kimberly Orjuela, Dirt heals,

Dan Yang, The Making of A Lettuce, 2021.

Julia Monaco,Tetraodontidae Polypropylene⁠, 2021.

Julia Monaco, Tetraodontidae Polypropylene⁠, 2021.

(Slide 1-2)
Marianne Charlebois⁠
Frammeti2⁠
2021
⁠
Frammeti2 is an in situ installation that explores Presence and how it helps heal inner Fragmentation. Here, I combined the constancy of the sky in the animation with profusion of mundane objects that I interacted with. The Existential exist side by side with the Ordinary. Their relation is fluid and constant. The layering of those seemingly off scale realities enhances in fact their egalitarian existences and adds perspective. They inform one another. Those nonlinear fragments of experiences happened and this artwork is an opportunity to stop and reflect on a journey. The first iteration of this artwork, Frammeti1, was produced during my stay at the Museum of Loss and Renewal, in Collemachia, Italy in August 2021.

Marianne Charlebois is a Montreal based visual artist. Through primarily Drawing, Print Media, Installation and Video, she explores Loss, Presence and the many tensions in between them. Her interest in mundane⁠ objects and ordinary life also speaks to those subjects. After many internships and residencies, she is now undergoing a BFA in Print Media at Concordia University.

(Slide 3-4)
Sara Mericle⁠
Trace Tile⁠
2021
⁠
Within these tiles are traces of soon to be obsolete everyday objects that once discarded, fade from memory, and become a part of the environment. These objects appear trapped beneath thick and cracking glazes that obscure their appearance. In this process, these everyday disposable objects are transformed into patterns. Patterns that may act as a reminder of the goods produced by throw away culture. These trace patterns preserve a memory of the objects, far beyond their obsolescence. ⁠
Many of the objects chosen are plastic or technological devices, and the surface treatment evokes the byproducts of the corrosion as these objects break down. The metals and minerals that are mined from the earth to make these objects, find their way back as they break down. In the process of developing these tiles, the following conceptual questions emerged: As these objects become obsolete, and vanish from our everyday lives, what are the ways that we will encounter them in the future? How will we deal with the unforeseen impacts of their deterioration?⁠

I work in a process oriented way, letting the material guide my development. Exploring conceptual meaning through a variety of materials, techniques, and building methods is an important part of this process. I often work in clay, as I find the material to be adaptable and stimulating to work with. Issues relating to climate anxiety, the place of the body in the environment, time, translation, and the exploration of hidden meaning in the everyday, are⁠ concepts that reoccur in my work.⁠

(Slide 5-7)
Quang Hai Nguyen⁠
to: the moon⁠
⁠2021

There is a feeling of powerlessness when it comes to trying to understand, in a broad way, the meaning of our existence. Knowing that there will eventually be an ending to everything that we build and cherish, we end up constantly wondering why things suddenly come and go at any moment of our life. Personally, I come to feel overwhelmed and even more frightened by our awareness of our own disappearance than death itself. As I desperately seek answers or ways to cope with my fear of being left alone. to: the moon is an ongoing visual conversation towards my anxiety of our inevitable future and a reminder to everyone, including myself, that we are and will still be loved no matter the distances that separate us. ⁠
Through the internal world of dreams, this project takes place in a re-imagined world of the unknown and ever-growing landscape that is surrounding us. While these pictures reveal the never-ending cycle of life and death, nature manifests itself as symbolic figures mimicking the fragile and lonely state of our being. As we slowly become small traces of time, I hopelessly wish for a future in which we can all somehow be together again.⁠

Quang Hai Nguyen is a Vietnamese photographer based in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal who is primarily interested in documentary photography. Through contemplation of the world and people that surround him, photography allows him to use the camera primarily as a tool of introspection, a mirror that reflects not only what he sees through the lens, but also dive into internal feelings lived in particular chapters of his life. By blurring the lines between reality and the imaginary, the world becomes his canvas for personal self-narration.⁠

(Slide 8)
Alexander Harper⁠, Chapel Hill⁠, 2021.
⁠

(Slide 9-15)
Iñigo Lasheras ⁠
The Nine Planetary Boundaries ⁠
2021

The Nine Planetary Boundaries is a theory that measures the damage humans have done to the environment and sets a safe operating space in which we can thrive without destroying our planet.⁠This project is a reflection, a contemplation and effort of understanding the landscape’s status in our societies. Our culture is based on an endless production system in a finite world, a system that turns everything into a product. By doing that it separates the landscape from our daily life, making our relationship with it more difficult and problematic. This is a serious problem keeping in mind that the landscape is an essential component in our⁠ identity, meaning the system is eradicating a part of our human aspect. Given this first thought on the relationship with our surrounding spaces I intend to keep working on this issue⁠.

I started studying Photography in 2019 at TAI School of Arts (Madrid, Spain). Since then, I’ve been trying to learn and develop a photographic language that allows me to express my concerns about the relationships between space and humans. Although I’m still in the process of completing academic education, I’ve started to carry out projects to train this language and learn from these works as I continue my education. As for the discourse in my projects, I try to delve and investigate how we modify the space that surrounds us and what effects these places have on our identities.⁠

Awarded with TAI’s Talent Scholarship, 2021⁠

(Slide 16-17)

Kimberly Orjuela⁠
Dirt heals⁠
2021
⁠
Curanderismo is a traditional native medical practice in Latin America that treats the spirit, the soul, and the physical body. One of the practices used to treat an intense trauma, is by digging the person in the earth with only its head sticking out and facing north. It is believed that the⁠ earth would provide the person support and healing energy. As a person who has had significant trauma to deal with, the process of healing a trauma has felt like a healing ritual of the soul, as the figure demonstrates.⁠

Kimberly Orjuela is a visual artist based in Montreal, QC . Born in Bogota, Colombia she immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of 1.⁠
Her upbringing in Montreal caused a disconnection to her original culture. This experience became the main source of inspiration in her creative work. Enamoured with Pre-Columbian culture and art, she bases her research on learning the lost history of Pre-Columbian people in south America and especially in Colombia. The goal with her work is to bring back the knowledge and history of the Latinx cultured related with their indigenous ancestry. Orjuela graduated from John Abbott College in the Visual Arts program and is currently pursuing a BFA degree at Concordia University in Montreal, where she received an early acceptance in the Studio Arts and Art History program.⁠

(Slide 18-19)
Dan Yang
The Making of A Lettuce
2021

The Making of a Lettuce is a project based on cyanotype printing studies. It consists of two parts: one is the deconstructed version of cyan-blue prints of lettuce leaves, and the other is the reconstructed version of a final lettuce product packed in plastic bag. The printing process of cyanotype is not always consistent because different exposure time, weather and different materials of the paper will produce different results. Some prints have sharp details of the veins of leaves, while others look vaguer and more abstract. Each print came out very uniquely different from the other, which corresponded to the leaves in the nature that also have distinctive shapes, sizes, and forms. These prints are later layered and packed into the packaging bag of lettuce, as if it is a real lettuce, but the color is oddly in blue. Beyond the duplication of a lifelike lettuce, my intention is to de/reconstruct the way of viewing, inviting viewers to contemplate the relation between artistic representation and our everyday object.

Dan Yang is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary Chinese Canadian artist who has graduated from Specialization Film Studies and continued her second degree of Studio Art at Concordia University. Dan locates her body of work on the theme of re-production as well as the re/deconstruction of the reality. Her current work is focused on the study of Cyanotype, an early photographic printing process that use exposure to sunlight to convert objects and negatives into cyan-blue prints on papers. She tends use natural objects such as plants and vegetables as studying subjects to create a new way of seeing.

(Slide 20-21)
Julia Monaco⁠
Tetraodontidae Polypropylene⁠
2021
⁠
The Tetraodontidae Polypropylene is a new species of fish within the Tetraodontidae genus. The Tetraodontidae Polypropylene has evolved to adapt to changes found in marine biodiversity. This species of fish no longer has spines, but instead, has developed the ability to absorb bottle caps into its skin. Once the bottle caps have morphed into the skin, they can absorb polluted water and refilter it into the ocean; releasing the purified water through the spouts of the water bottle caps.⁠
⁠
The idea for this project began by looking at the effects of climate change on our physical environment. This includes rising sea levels, sand erosion, the prosperity of soil and water supplies. The first to feel environmental effects are animals. This work began with the simple guiding question “What evolutionary changes might be needed to sustain life?”.⁠
⁠
Although unrealistic in appearance, this project aims to start a conversation surrounding animal and plant life that are being affected by our current climate crisis.⁠

My body of work attempts to shed light on societal issues, often referencing our current environmental crisis. My artworks explore issues concerning pollution, global warming, and weakening ecosystems. More specifically, it takes on an imaginative approach to showcase how the world may look in the future. Although my artistic practice is primarily three-dimensional⁠ the materials used in each work vary depending on the subject matter. While the work may vary in appearance the inspiration always derives from the same place, the environment. Each artwork begins with a single source of inspiration and develops into a more meaningful work during the research process.⁠

(Slide 1-7)
Alexander Harper⁠
Chapel Hill⁠
2021
⁠
Chapel Hill came to be from a profound realization that has led me here to Montreal. What started as an unconscious exploration of my town became a turning point in my life. Suburbia is a unique⁠ environment in which to grow up. On the surface, it seems perfect. Immaculate lawns, gardens, well-spaced trees, and parks create a sense of harmony and congruity. Roaming the suburbs alone at night has always felt surreal to me. You are completely isolated from others while simultaneously being so close. Only a few meters from the street, the glow of a window offers a story. The dwellings are unvaried in appearance, yet unparalleled in narratives. When I was younger, my father often brought me along with him on long days out canvassing in the car. Watching the world from behind a window was how I passed the time. These circumstances likewise led me to meet numerous people, each with a unique perspective and life experience to share. A year ago, I started going out with my camera to visit the many neighbourhoods of my hometown to capture the magic and intrigue I saw in these places. I photographed by instinct, shooting what called to me. Later, I discovered that making these pictures was similar to looking out from behind the car window. The only difference was that now I was the one looking in.⁠

Why do I photograph? Because I am captivated by the ethereal. I believe all things have emotional energy. The sentiments evoked by a place, person, or object can change according to infinite factors. Nevertheless, these things will always invoke an emotional response in the viewer. When I take pictures, I try to capture the story being presented to me. Being a fan of cinema, I view life as a movie. I see the world as numerous scenes of different movies all playing out in front of me simultaneously. These charged moments are what I strive to portray in my images. As much as I aspire to convey my specific emotional response, I am fascinated by the plethora of possible⁠ responses felt by the viewer according to their unique life experience.⁠

(Slide 8)

Malte Leander⁠
Sides to tides / Cotées des marées⁠
⁠2021

“Sides to tides / Cotées des marées” is an audiovisual exploration of the tidal cycles in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, home to the largest tides in the world. Through a variety of different field recording equipment & hydrophone microphones, the artist is offering different sonic perspectives to the big body of water, and its’ adjacent coastline. The soundscape composition is accompanied by grainy footage from a mini-DV camcorder from the early 2000’s, with a timeline that corresponds to the shifting levels of water. The resulting video leaves the viewer in a limbo of dream and reality, somewhere in between the ebb and flow.⁠

Malte Leander is a Swedish-French composer and artist currently residing in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada, studying in the program of Electroacoustic studies at Concordia University. He is actively engaged in a variety of contexts; from hosting and organizing music events such as live shows, workshops and music camps together with the electronic music collective and label So&Such in Sweden, to being a present figure in the Fine Arts community in Montreal, working in local community radio by facilitating discussions with local artists around the topics of digital practices and new media art and technology. His multilingual skills and electroacoustic compositional endeavors has gotten him to work with text-sound composition and sound poetry, often mixed with his interest for sustainability through acoustic ecology and related topics.⁠

(Slide 9-10)

Iñigo Lasheras, The Nine Planetary Boundaries, 2021.

(Slide 11-13)
Dan Yang, The Making of A Lettuce, 2021.

Alexander Harper⁠, Chapel Hill⁠, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Alexander Harper⁠, Chapel Hill⁠, 2021.

Malte Leander, Sides to tides / Cotées des marées⁠, 2021.
⁠

Iñigo Lasheras, The Nine Planetary Boundaries, 2021.

Dan Yang, The Making of A Lettuce, 2021.

MAKING A HOUSE A HOME

The domestic space and femininity are often interconnected in our modern society. As we continue to develop society, traditional gender roles blur and ideas of what it means to be feminine shift. These works defy stereotypes and question the role of women in the home. What does it mean to be a perfect housewife? How do domestic objects recontextualize when removed from their intended spaces?

EXHIBITION: NOV 10 - 26, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
ENYA- MORGAN HEINRICHS
YASMEEN DAJANI
MANUELA MARA
HANNAH FERGUSON
ÉMILIE BOUCHARD FORTIER
ISABELLE ANGUITA
TIANA ATHERTON
PATRICIA THÈBE DOUNE
STÉPHANIE BOURGAULT

(Slide 1-4)

Émilie Bouchard Fortier
Softly Tied Up and The Roll
2021

Softly Tied Up et The Roll font partie d’un projet initial incluant plusieurs matières trouvées : tapis de couloir, bas collant, tuyau, pneu, coussins. Par leur forme, leur matière, leur vécu, ces objets inspirent une autre vie en dehors de l’utilité. Qu’auraient-ils envie de dire s' ils n’étaient plus soumis à l’usage? Que peuvent avoir envie de faire des objets retraités? ⁠

Est-il possible de raconter de nouvelles histoires ou les personnages sont inertes, mais peut-être pas mort pour autant, ou chacun vit l’expérience de relations nouvelles au travers leur propre transformation? ⁠

Émilie Bouchard Fortier, Softly Tied Up and The Roll, 2021. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Émilie Bouchard Fortier, Softly Tied Up and The Roll, 2021. ⁠

Enya-Morgan Heinrichs, Weaving Blood⁠.⁠

Enya-Morgan Heinrichs, Weaving Blood⁠.

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Hannah Ferguson, ill-fitting glove⁠.

Isabelle Anguita, SÉRIE POUR EMPORTER 1, 2, 3 and CHIMÈRE.

Manuela Jara-Fortin, OUR VOICES / NOS VOIX.

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(Slide 5-6)

Enya-Morgan Heinrichs
Weaving Blood⁠

The artwork emerged out of a need to tell the stories of the Cypriot women of past and present. The word dowry or proika (Greek) was not new to me; but what was new was my realization of how craft and material practices were exploited to suppress women and take control of their bodies and lives. ⁠Weaving Blood captures the transition of emotions during the weaving process that likely many Cypriot women experienced while carrying out their marriage contract or dowry. Their emotions of innocent joy and naive happiness eventually morphed into pain and dread. The selected colours for the tea towel were drawn from historical materials and artifacts of the Cypriot tradition during the 18th and 19th century. ⁠During the slow process of weaving, I began to embody and experience the same emotions as these women ancestors. From the first measured thread to the last stitch placed on the tea towel, a collection of words occupied my mind that still haunt me: “Weaving until you bleed and numb yourself from the reality of an arranged marriage. Weaving your way into womanhood, where virginity and purity are one and the same. Weaving with the hope that you wake up from this play of fate that birthed you a woman”.

(Slide 7-8)

Hannah Ferguson, ill-fitting glove⁠.

(Slide 9-13)

Isabelle Anguita
SÉRIE POUR EMPORTER 1, 2, 3 and CHIMÈRE

Mon travail me permet d’explorer les notions de reconstruction symbolique du soi par le biais de reformulations visuelles de mémoires affectives. J’ai commencé par m’inspirer de photographies et d’archives pour réaliser des peintures en techniques mixtes. Par la suite, dans la foulée du mouvement #Meetoo, ma pratique artistique est devenue le point d’ancrage pour la reformulation visuelle d’un récit traumatique vécu dans mon enfance. J’utilise la fascination qu’exerce sur moi les souvenirs reliés aux objets pour créer un nouveau récit intime. D’objets mémoire à œuvres-miroirs, ce processus cyclique de projection de soi dans l’œuvre par le biais de l’invention de nouveaux récits, devient à son tour la base de nouvelles œuvres.

Mes œuvres se présentent comme des allégories de mémoires affectives dont les thèmes se déclinent autour de l’enfance, les traces, les deuils. L’utilisation de techniques empruntées à l’artisan at ainsi que d’objets et textiles domestiques personnels, me permet de créer des univers familiers, nostalgique et oniriques. En effet, la composition de ces œuvres se rapporte aux types de collages fantastiques opérés dans les rêves mettant en scène les désirs ou peurs enfouies et leurs sens cachés. Animée par le désir de nommer tout autant que celui de dissimuler, je mets en scène des œuvres qui en disent plus long qu’elles en montrent. J’amplifie la dimension sacrée du secret et interpelle le visiteur à regarder au-delà des apparences.

(Slide 14)

Manuela Jara-Fortin
OUR VOICES / NOS VOIX

OUR VOICES / NOS VOIX presents images of textured objects and of the female body submerged underwater. ⁠
In this piece, people identifying themselves as womxn were asked to produce texts about the perception of their body. Womxn wrote about their bodies in their own words and intimacy. Texts were then collected and read aloud as the artist immersed herself in water. The recorded sound of this reading performance is combined with the soundscape of the piece. The sound of the voice is intentionally distorted by the effects of water. This performance carries the voices of the womxn who wrote them. However, voices sometimes remain inaudible, unheard and lost in the substance of water. ⁠

OUR VOICES / NOS VOIX explores the female body by comparing it to materials often mimicking the appearance of skin such as textile, tissue or plastic. The images show female bodies (hands, skin, hair, thighs, breasts) in alternance with objects composed by those materials, in a way that objects and bodies come to merge as one. Through lighting and movement, the camera explores how objects / bodies coexist in water. The camera intends to reveal the structural and textural composition of objects / bodies (smooth, soft, porous, rough, brittle, delicate, raw). ⁠
OUR VOICES / NOS VOIX explores the intimacy of bodies through the voices of womxn and the sensorial universe of water. This piece is a continuation of the artist’s work, insofar as the body is a subject of research and nature, the engine of creation. ⁠

*This work is currently ongoing. The artist is still collecting texts for future performances in the context of this project.⁠

(Slide 1-5)

Stéphanie Bourgault
« Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife »

Depuis mars 2020, nous sommes réduits à nos maisons, sans possibilité « de s’évader, de nous fuir, confinés entre nos murs et dans notre tête. C’est là que je suis devenue une « housewife ». Auparavant je ne m’étais jamais sentie « femme », je n’avais jamais ressenti la fameuse charge mentale. J’étais libre, j’allais où bon me semblait. Je vivais et j’existais en dehors de l’espace domestique. Pour la première fois, je me sentais envahi par les enfants, je voulais être seule, je voulais du silence. Je rêvais de maisons vides.⁠
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Ma fascination pour les espaces domestiques désertés trouve un écho chez Louise Bourgeois. « Dans les années 40, [elle] réalise ses premières Femme-Maison, des personnages féminins dont une partie du corps est enfermée dans une maison. La symbolique est forte : le rôle de la femme au foyer, son identité, sa place vis-à-vis de l’homme, l’enfermement domestique, le huis clos familial, la promiscuité… J’y vois aussi le spectre du passé qui ne lui laisse aucun répit. L’impossibilité de se défaire des souvenirs […]. La maison vide deviendra d’ailleurs une obsession : “Dans les maisons vides, personne ne se dispute.” » ⁠
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Même vide, une maison à sa propre personnalité. L’absence laisse quand même une impression de présence. Des traces ont été laissées par les personnes qui ont occupé l’espace : parfum, objet oublié, trace lorsqu’on enlève un cadre du mur après de longues années. Une maison garde la mémoire de ses occupants, vide d’objet, plein de fantômes, de souvenirs. ⁠

(Slide 6-14)

Yasmeen Dajani⁠
01. "We were picking flowers at the picnic when she asked me if the sun was in the right place"
02. “At the Tea Party”
03. “In preparation for the orbital winter (pink)”
04. “In preparation for the orbital winter (blue)”⁠

This series plays with a maximalist aesthetic that allows the drawings to exist in a zone between richness and anxiety-inducing excess. This tension pushes viewers to engage in a playful and multifaceted reflection that elides straightforward conclusions. On the one hand, the drawings bask in visual pleasure, with a focus on feminine aesthetics; subjects such as floral motifs and lush fabrics receive a serious and careful treatment. On the other hand, the saturation of patterns and colours lends a dizziness to these same aesthetics, de-familiarizing and unsettling the way that viewers may be accustomed to encountering them. The variation in rendering—incorporating both mess and meticulousness— adds a further layer of tension, creating a push and pull between chaos and order. As the formal elements push viewers minds in different directions, so too do the pieces’ subject matter— everyday iterations of memory, femininity, social relations, and various components of identity-- become imbued with a mixture of beauty, strangeness, fear, longing, and whimsicality. The drawings’ playful spirit, brought to the foreground through exaggerated colours and conspicuously wobbly lines, provides a framework for engaging with these conflicting impressions: the series’ lighthearted dimension creates a space for looping through these impressions without settling in a particular spot, inviting viewers to linger on what they might find in between.

(Slide 15-16)

Patricia Thèbe Doune
‘‘The doily’’ (Sans titre– Untitled)

This artwork, which is estimated to end at around 12 feet, is an homage to feminist agency through the act of making, the men and women in my family who inspired me in becoming the feminist that I am, and obviously, familial inheritances. The material used to create this artwork, and the shape it takes (doily) is symbolically linked to gender stereotypes. For the longest time, each gender where stigmatize in their own societal role. This doily represents the becoming of both and many more in an intersect world. This study/reflection is about inheritance across all genders and not as a divided story, encouraging a future that is intrinsically harmonized by the strength of everyone becoming (nonbinary, transgender, female/male, etc.). ⁠
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Ultimately, my work is made to be a shared reflection or point of view for an indirect conversation. ⁠
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I believe the process of making such artwork is as significant as the final result. Therefore, in showing the work in progress, I hope to bring reflections to the ongoing social and familial apparatus of the moment.

Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife » Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife » ⁠
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Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife »

Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife » ⁠

Yasmin Dajani, 2021.

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Yasmeen Dajani⁠, 2021.

Yasmeen Dajani, 2021.

Yasmeen Dajani⁠, 2021.

Patricia Thèbe Doune, ‘‘The doily’’ (Sans titre– Untitled)

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Patricia Thèbe Doune, ‘‘The doily’’ (Sans titre– Untitled)

(Slide 1-3)
Hannah Ferguson
ill-fitting glove⁠

This process-based project works with the glove, as a garment that furnishes work but is also protective, to think about periods of gestation and regeneration. Using cheesecloth, traditionally a preservative material, a pair of gloves was cyclically made, unmade, remade, and coated in beeswax. Exploring evasive modes of documentation, the gloves were captured on cyanotype fabric and scanned, denying access to a fixed product. The gloves become more and more inarticulate throughout the making and unmaking process, warping and turning in on themselves, inefficient and unproductive--investigating the “negative spaces” within making. ⁠

(Slide 4-9)
Émilie Bouchard Fortier, Softly Tied Up and The Roll, 2021.

(Slide 10)
Enya-Morgan Heinrichs, Weaving Blood⁠.

(Slide 11-13)
Isabelle Anguita, SÉRIE POUR EMPORTER 1, 2, 3 and CHIMÈRE.

(Slide 14-16)
Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife »

(Slide 17-22)
Tiana Atherton
Home Makeover Quilt⁠.

This miniature quilt is made entirely from leftovers, held together by stitches of hair, cut off at a salon. Using hair in conjunction with miniatures, I connect home maintenance (like cleaning) and the work women do (or are expected to do) for body beautification (like makeup, shaving and other ways of positioning bodies to be appealing and acceptable, but always to feel in control of your own body). Both acts of control over bodies and in homes are mirrored in the expectations of "cleanliness", perfection and beauty. In miniatures, control and detail are everything, so small and perfect that there is no space left over for human presence. This project builds on works I’ve made out of household items that are performed in near-nonsensical ways, where I was thinking about domesticity, ridiculousness and the notion of function/failure. Here, these ideas emerge in a quieter way, and make me consider where comfort, disgust and control are negotiated in domesticity. In what ways has home failed us and how can it be made right again? Through the quilt, materials are renewed, and abject objects from the body are reacquainted with their homes.⁠

(Slide 23-24)

Yasmeen Dajani⁠, 2021.

Hannah Ferguson, ill-fitting glove⁠. Click to expand the image and swipe for additional views

Hannah Ferguson, ill-fitting glove⁠.

Hannah Ferguson, ill-fitting glove⁠.
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Émilie Bouchard Fortier, Softly Tied Up and The Roll, 2021. ⁠

Enya-Morgan Heinrichs, Weaving Blood⁠.

Isabelle Anguita, SÉRIE POUR EMPORTER 1, 2, 3 and CHIMÈRE.

Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife »

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Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife »

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Stéphanie Bourgault, « Les maisons, ou comment je suis devenue une « housewife »

Tiana Atherton, Home Makeover Quilt⁠.

Yasmeen Dajani⁠, 2021.

ENCOUNTERING SELF

EXHIBITION: DEC 6 - 8, 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: N/A

GROUP
CONNOR COOK
AMARA BARNER
VIVIANNE VINCENT

N/A