Chrysalis (2021)

Chrysalis envisions the body’s borders as permeable and fluctuating, navigating a form of sickly tenderness. The work developed from an interest in rotting food and bodily waste, and the potential for this discarded organic material to produce new life. The piece incorporates fruit which ages over the duration of the installation. As the fruit’s original structures begin to decompose, novel structures emerge.

Artist : DEXTER BARKER-GLENN

Moterus 2999: The Larvae Incubator (2019-2020)

Moterus 2999 includes a uterus powered by a gas engine that is activated by an electric motor with a transmission. This womb does not serve to reproduce a human, but rather to define the artist who produced it: it is a tool that allows her to reconstruct her own identity. In it, materials associated with masculine culture confront a uterus, the ultimate symbol of femininity.

The cube here is not inhabited by the main uterus, but rather presents the other components of the Moterus 2999 project: 28 autonomous “larvae” (uterus babies), all made of old-fashioned car parts, toys and textiles. Some include small electrical devices, such as lights, vibrators, rotary motors, an amplifier or bells. The larvae are presented in 1’x1’x1′ plexiglass boxes. The large cube is thus transformed into a giant incubator where the little larvae wriggle and flash.

By giving autonomy to this internal organ that is the uterus, the artist questions the degree of control we have over our bodies and reflects the precariousness of artificial reproduction. She intervenes every 28 days, at the rhythm of a menstrual cycle, in order to replace the batteries and see to the proper functioning of the mechanisms. These moments are an opportunity for the artist to discuss the work with art lovers and curious members of the public.

Artist : FANNY DUBOIS

Trim the walls (2021)

Drawing from everyday objects that are diverted from their functions, Henry Frantz Patrick creates “oxygen sculptures.” For the artist, this represents a way of generating alternations between construction, reconstruction and destruction. Different objects molded in gypsum cement are sometimes colored with dry pigment, some are perforated and encrusted with recovered materials, and are then arranged to form modular structures. Engraving gradually makes materials disappear and reveals recomposed cartographies. The maps of Port-au-Prince and Montreal are arranged with lines of hands in order to represent an imagined space.

These different strategies are mobilized to show how the world is extensible. Through creative practice, passages open up, and the world reveals itself to be vaster and more multiple. This sculptural installation therefore carries the crucial idea that our apparently fixed categories are rather changing phenomena, which require a permanent renewal of being, just like the citizen of the republic-window:
“… trim the walls
may a crack save us
may a breach be born
may a tree rise
and the branches spread the good news
trim the shadows that cut our throats
may a springtime speak
may a living tongue lick our landscapes
trim the walls…”

Excerpt from an unpublished poem by Jean d’Amérique, 2021

Artist : FRANTZ PATRICK HENRY

Dioramas (2021)

In this series of six images integrated into backlit boxes, the artist revisits the diorama, an ancestor of cinema and virtual reality. The diorama is a museographic device invented by Daguerre in the 19th century. It is usually composed of two-dimensional images and three-dimensional elements, and stages personal or historical events with chiaroscuro and depth effects.

Here, the artist summons viewers to a suspended space-time through small, intimate theaters set against the backdrop of the Clark Plaza construction site, observed in situ and photographed in the fall of 2019. Each image was reworked with photoediting software, then printed onto a translucent acrylic panel that was inserted into a box and backlit. Various fragments (construction debris, architectural elements) are integrated into the device. These miniature manufactured worlds, questioning the links between illusion and reality, are inserted in a rather imposing black cubic volume, which contrasts with the scale of these small magic lanterns, that may be observed by day and by night in the city.

Artist : GENEVIÈVE ROY

Artificial nostalgia (2019)

Composed of a series of pink-tone ceramic sculptures, Artificial nostalgia projects a longing for a period of innocence when days were filled with infinite possibility and mystery. Borrowing the form of the traditional vase, the artist constructs a whimsical sculpture that blends memories of her home country with illusions. Neon pink powder is scattered around the ceramic pieces as if the sculptures were appearing on the surface of a pink pond. While their exteriors are highly ornate, the vases’ interiors remain hollow. In the eyes of the artist, each vase reflects a desire for individuation. Exuding an aesthetic that is both cute and quirky, this collection of ceramic vases alludes to the melancholic dreamscape of childhood.

Artist : HEARYUNG KIM

Tile (2020-2021)

Here, the artist explores a material that is commonly used in the built environment: ceramic tile. This material — at times generic, at times ostentatious — is applied to the floors and walls of our bathrooms, kitchens and lobbies. Chosen above all for its functional properties, it is found in all the places we frequent daily.

In this installation, the artist decontextualizes ceramic tile from its usual function in order to explore its influence on the realization and perception of 2D and 3D spaces. Her research has led to the realization of 96 sculptures and up to 576 paintings, which present a declination of volumes and flattenings in four shades of gray. These different visual experiences allow us to observe the ways in which the properties of ceramic tile (its format, color, texture, the spacing between tiles, etc.) influence our reading of 2D and 3D objects.

With this project, the artist highlights the complexity, nuances and importance of this material in the built landscape. She questions its form, function and potential. Her project thus invites us to pay attention to all the materials, often unnoticed and seemingly insignificant, that shape our environments and have a tangible impact on our daily experiences.

Artist : JULIETTE BLOUIN

Cult pollinators, our hosts (2021)

The worship of insects, our hosts on this planet, is the role of this artwork which includes hotel-altars intended for lesser-known pollinators and their auxiliaries, those who remain in the shadow of the popular honeybee: lacewings, hoverflies, earwigs, bumblebees, solitary bees a.k.a. osmia, wasps, ladybugs and butterflies. These shelter sculptures allow them to copulate, to reproduce and to hibernate. These key creatures, who promote biodiversity, fertilize future victuals and provide an integrated form of pest control.

Artist : MAUDE POIRIER FELX

Still life (2020-2021)

Presented as a sculptural still life, this installation is composed of classic elements of the genre, such as fruit or a vase. The artist’s production for this work comes from technical research in wood and metal. With its oversized and non-proportional objects, whose colors and forms are not faithful to reality, this surreal still life seems to stem from an imaginary world. The inspiration for the works that compose it was drawn from common elements in the still life genre, but also from the theme of the picnic. The works are installed in the manner of classic still life paintings, such as those of Cézanne or Van Gogh, with the cube’s floor serving here as a dining table or a picnic tablecloth. As a whole, they create a sense of wonder and intrigue, as if the glass cube offered a doorway to another universe that is just as strange as our own.

Artist : MYRIAM SIMARD-PARENT

Bring back as souvenirs | Give away back home as souvenirs (2019 – ongoing)

The installation consists of hand screen-printed “good morning towels” which were hand-washed and hung to dry on a clothesline, alongside plastic basins and buckets. The project came out of the artist’s interest in the “good morning towel,” a banal object she saw in Chinese restaurants and Hong Kong-style cafes. She became curious about the towel’s origins after seeing it on display at Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile. Unable to find traditionally-valued academic sources to support her research, the artist turned to Facebook groups and personal blogs to pick out phrases that depict how people interact with these towels. She then selected four phrases that vividly describe these interactions and screen-printed them onto 40 towels.

As a Canadian-born Hong Kong-Chinese person, Cheung investigates the interdependent relationship between objects, place and identity through an interdisciplinary research-based practice. Her favourite materials are banal, everyday objects that hold significant cultural weight. Through their sheer existence, they are documents of the shared lived experiences and memories between individuals within and outside of the artist’s communities.

Artist : SNACK WITCH JONI CHEUNG

Two ½ robots (2021)

Two cathode ray televisions face each other. Each one broadcasts the image of a humanoid, who converses with the other. In the center of the cube is a terrace table. A stereophonic system broadcasts the sound of the humanoids’ conversations outside the cube. The two “bots” or artificial intelligence algorithms converse non-stop for the duration of the exhibit. The resulting conversations are as confusing as they are surprising, just like the interactions that can be found on social networks. With the sound of the loudspeakers echoing outside the cube, spectators become witnesses to the communicational hazards generated by the artwork, which proposes an ironic interpretation of the communicational dissonance that is specific to the age of the Web, made even more palpable in pandemic times.

Zacharie Gauvreau and Victor Imbeau began their collaboration at UQÀM. It is fueled by their sometimes ironic, sometimes cynical humor, as well as by the thematic and formal aspects of their respective work. Together, they are interested in our relationship to consumption, to social networks, and to contemporary technology, as well as its impact on our lives.

Artist : ZACHARIE GAUVREAU AND VICTOR IMBEAU