(Slide 1-5)
Marie Ann LaRoche
Obsolete, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 20”
Dead, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 20”
Abandoned, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 20” x 20”

Night Crawler is a series of acrylic paintings of objects found in the streets of Montréal during the summer of 2021. A printer, a dead bird and a grocery cart present the unsettling and liminal feeling of wandering and exploring Montréal alone at night. They depict a landscape that is mysterious, strangely welcoming, and incredibly lonely. These common objects, once discarded in the streets, become nothing more than litter. They become invisible, blending in with the grime of the city. At night, when most people are sleeping and you are the only one outside, time seems to stop, and everything starts to look incredibly strange and interesting. A kind of animal curiosity takes over and you wander around looking for something new and shiny. The city is beautiful, and everything is still. You are the only one moving. These objects meet you in their own travels, in their own liminal states. They weren’t there yesterday; they probably won’t be in the same place tomorrow. You met them at the perfect time. It’s as if they’re telling you something. They invite you to build a narrative around the things you might encounter on the street. What is their story? Where did they come from? Who else encountered them? What is left of them now?

Joshua Jensen
Weighted Blanket
2021-2022

In my installation, Weighted Blanket, I want to present my relation of place within Montreal and the soothing feeling of containment in domestic space. In the process, I considered a conversation I had with my roommates about the comfort and weight of being held under a weighted blanket. Whether physically or psychologically, between two rivers, or in my own personal space, I sought to understand this feeling of containment. With this, I began to deconstruct my surroundings and work gesturally, playing with found and altered materials and assembling them together. Ideas such as fragility and time became apparent through an archaeological and photographic approach where I created a new, temporary and ephemeral space where these objects and ideas can interact and speak with one another.

Anissa Boukili el Hassani
La fin est la début et le début est la fin
Rug, wood, microwaved coffee, bowl, jade stone, candles, photography, ink on paper
Diary: 7.5” x 8”
2021 - 2044

“La fin est le début et le début est la fin” is a 23-year-old long performance and installation taking place once a year from 2021 to 2044. Every year, as an homage to the artist’s long-lost friend, Jade, a new letter will be added to a handmade diary showcasing memories of their friendship. After 23 years, the duration of Jade’s life, the 85-page diary will be completed with 23 handwritten letters and 56 burnt screen printed replicas of a letter the artist wrote in 2020.

This work is a way of symbolizing the different stages of the mourning cycle. It is a tribute to the fragility of life and the importance of the community. The performance is a kind of personal and collective healing ritual, but also a way to open the conversation about mental health in the midst of a global pandemic.

(Slide 1-5)
Jelena Stankovic
this is an altar for remembering, ancestral or otherwise
Multimedia Installation
2021-2022

“this is an altar for remembering, ancestral or otherwise” is an exploration of altars as places we go to for comfort, knowledge, and memory – be it personal, spiritual, or ancestral. An altar, here, is a place of longing for a connection with the self and the past. In diasporic conditions, a link to the past – or even the present that’s geographically far – is made difficult, which often increases the desire for material representations of the home that’s been left behind.

Material objects are often at the center of heritage, folklore, and collective memory and the connection between materiality and memory is at the core of this project. This particular altar asks: What objects do we hold onto to evoke memory? How does trying to re-capture moments from the past influence our sense of self?

To explore this idea, I worked with the concept of material memory, both in the way that we use material culture to reference the past and the material objects have their own memory. In some ways, this is literal – the pillow and cover have literal words that reference moments from my life. But they also hold their own memory – the holes left by the felting needle, for example, is a memory that the cloth will hold forever. Meanwhile, the ghost objects – made or painted white – represent gestures, rather than the material objects themselves. This is contrasted with the “real” objects, which often move from daily use to a position of reliquary, especially in diasporas.


(Slide 6)
Lou Neveux-Pardijon , drawing series.

Chris M. Forsyth
Montana Road Wreck
pigment prints, grid of prints 16x20” each
2021

Montana Road Wreck follows a system of roadway fatality markers across Montana. For nearly 70 years, a group of war veterans has sought to mark virtually every fatal crash in hopes that making death visible in the landscape could prevent future tragedy. Now, the state is dotted with several thousands of these near identical white crosses, folding the living, the dead, and the land into one. Presented alongside a collection of newspaper excerpts, the project explores our need to seek patterns and find control in the face of catastrophe.

(Slide 1-7)
Marianne Rouche
2700 Liters
cotton fabric and indigo dye, 9ft x 9ft x 9ft
2021

"It takes approximately 2700 liters of water to produce one cotton t-shirt" 2700 Liters (2021) is the result of experimentations with textile, indigo dye and their intrinsic relationship to/with water. This project stems from tensions, both subjectively felt and externally imposed by the contradictions inherent to the desire for ethical solutions in a capitalist paradigm. When working with natural indigo dye and cotton fabric, it became apparent that the one of the main components that becomes invisibilized in the process of textile production and dying is Water. This installation project is broken down into three iterations which explore the notion of water as a multifaceted phenomenon; a fascinating natural occurrence with distinct sensory and material properties, a symbolic and metaphorical canvas for human expression, and finally, a highly valuable resources which, set on the stage of climate change, economic development and sustainable goals is a violent site of contestation.


(Slide 8-13)
Julie Ciot
The Non-Performing Effect of Time
Photography, Installation. 
2021 

The Non-Performing Effect of Time is photographic body of work that gravitates around the analogy of the temporal nature of photography and the ephemeral nature our existence. Through this body of work, I wanted to explore the documentation of the effect of time on undeveloped analogue paper. I chose this material as I find beautiful the colors that results from it. I do find really incoherent how a paper made for black and white images results in such beautiful shades of purple, orange and pink as it becomes waste, and not usable. I like the idea of conservation of this beautiful waste. Through digitalization of this phase of their life, the goal was to print them larger than regular size, which is 8x10, to really put emphasis on the colors and by manipulating their shape, the goal was to put the emphasis on their presence in the room, to give them value. I think its interesting when you start to think about them as bodies, or objects with no more utility, ready to be discard, and how we can link this to people’s roles (mother, worker, influencer, etc.) and their value when this role is no longer their, when we are no longer "useful".

 

Maurane

1. MC-String, 2020, digital collage
2. MC-sting Pub, 2020, video
3. JVC Bra, 2020, Video
4. Sponge Thong, 2020, digital collage
   
5. Cheese Grater Top, 2020, video
6. Top de vaisselle, 2020, digital collage
7. Pantie Cloud, 2020, video
8. Plaster head I, 2020, video
9. Plaster head II, 2020, video
10. Plaster top creation, 2020, video
11. Band Aid underwear, 2020, video
12. An another type of plaster top, 2020, digital photo
13. Air cushioning Top, 2020, Photo
14. Durex String, 2021, digital collage
15. Fruit Nets Top, 2021, video
16. Slip et Corset de Gazon, 2021, video
17. Pelouse, 2021, video
18. Beer Caps Pants, 2022, digital collage
19. Beer Caps Pants, 2022, video

The global fashion industry is the second-largest polluter in the world. I believe in fashion and design that can be sustainable. My design should be part of a solution, not part of a problem. I want to keep the positive impact of fashion, which for me is its creative side without compromising the earth’s health. To achieve this goal, I actively participate in a circular economy by reusing everyday objects and waste and giving them a new purpose. Each of my creations is presented in an experimental video format and with a subtle ironic tone.

Mélanie Reid
From Nothing to Nothing/Something
Screen print with perfume on fabric, perfume cards, and white Stonehenge paper, 3 frames 8 1⁄2” x 11”. 
2021 

The blank page syndrome affects everybody at least once in their life. How can we make emptiness into fullness, the invisible into the visible? By moving the image of a blank page from the material world to the electronic realm, From Nothing to Nothing/Something makes visible the picture of a blank page taken from a computer screen. The white image was moved from white to RGB to CMYK to nuances of grey to transparent to its final blue, red, yellow and black, making it colored. An invisible layer of perfumed transparent base was also added to each print. But, like the rest of the process, it remains unknown by the public as the final prints are tightly framed thus odorless.