Our collection

Richard Baillargeon’s work focuses on how we see and move through the world. Using photographs and texts, he explores our relationship with the world, highlighting its fragility and uncertainty. This results in narratives that invite personal interpretation. Baillargeon captures his images from different places.

The works presented here are part of the series Ces parts d’ombre that the artist created during a residency in New Delhi in 2013. The series includes around fifty images and ten short texts about the encounters he had during his journey. Baillargeon’s works come to life in two stages: first, when he captures the image, and then when he reflects on his memories to connect words and images.

Emmanuelle Breton’s practice is ecofeminist, reflecting her respect for ecosystems and values of gender equity. She creates poetic works using everyday objects through linocut printing.

Her piece Origine, from the series Résignées oubliées, was created during the Summit of the Americas in Quebec in 2001. While in residence at Engramme, close to the protests, the artist was deeply affected by what she witnessed, even becoming accustomed to the smell of tear gas. This experience sparked strange, negative feelings that are evident in her series, which critiques society. Each element of her work highlights issues raised during the Summit protests, such as worker exploitation and the climate crisis. For example, the coin printed at the center symbolizes not only money but also women as an allegory for our societies, where wealth and poverty coexist. Here, she addresses the neglect of the vulnerable by wealthy nations.

Anie Toole is primarily a textile artist who combines a logical and sensitive approach in her work. She follows several steps to create her pieces.

First, she makes a watercolor sketch, which serves as the basis for her design. Then, she digitizes this sketch and uses software to plan the structures she will weave on a Jacquard loom. Her textile work combines manual and digital techniques: the loom controls the thread lifting, but she operates the shuttle by hand. Once the weaving is done, she covers it with ink made from natural pigments mixed with oil, and presses it to create unique prints (monotypes) and ghost images. Throughout her creative process, she manipulates the fabric by puncturing and folding it, which wears it down over time. This creates variations of the same object, changing from print to print until it becomes unusable.

Toole’s work also reflects her multilingual background, materializing her artistic language through the arrangement of threads, much like constructing a sentence. One of her pieces, Tissage B, Variation I avec fantôme, is a print made from cotton and Seine rope weaving, capturing its textures and relief through embossing.

Ilana Pichon studies and analyzes spaces. With her background in architecture, she focuses on how we understand places and their different elements. She simplifies these locations to create new interpretations for viewers. She uses layering, repetition, and transformation of patterns and textures based on her observations.

The work Sans titre is part of a series made during a residency at Engramme. This series includes nine sculptural pieces shown in Engramme’s gallery, along with a mural painted on the old Esso at Cartier and René-Lévesque. The paper piece presented here explores the shapes and empty spaces created by highway interchanges in Quebec City, using images from Google Maps..

Mathieu Gotti uses his artworks to strongly criticize our devastating behaviors such as overconsumption, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. His sculptures depict animals and highlight the harmful actions of our current societies. Le Gélada à la fin du pétrole offers a fresh and original vision of a world in distress.

The gelada, surrounded by empty gas cans, cries out for its lost world, for a time ruined by civilization. The monkey’s anger, sadness, and tension remind us how our dependence on oil weakens its natural environment. Like a human, the monkey denounces the radical destruction of its world without taking action. Gotti’s use of bright colors and a hint of irony adds a playful element to the piece while maintaining its serious message. This dystopian caricature offers a critical perspective and aims to strikingly alert the viewer. Through this image of a gelada in crisis, Gotti illustrates the consequences of current upheavals and raises awareness of the gradual disappearance of… everything!

Josée Landry-Sirois’s creations come from everyday life. They blend intimacy and universality, bringing a sense of softness and strangeness to ordinary objects. Her works reveal the fragility and randomness that are part of the human experience.

C’est extra, created in 2013, was first shown at L’Œil de Poisson, where the artist explores traces of the past. The piece was also made at the Mezzanine studio, highlighting the artist’s attachment to the center where she worked for several years. This large collage, made with “Extra” gum papers, represents an accumulation of objects and memories that, when brought together, form a cohesive work. The title also references the famous song by musician Léo Ferré, released in 1968.

Péio Eliceiry’s work blends painting and printmaking with a strong focus on form and space. His minimalist art shows different ways of representing images. He appropriates images while paying attention to how they are made and their documentary quality.

Inventaire is the first piece in a series of three prints created during a residency at Méduse. In 2015, the artist explored printmaking by collecting various objects from L’Œil de Poisson’s wood workshop. He inked these materials and placed them directly on the press for printing. The spontaneous arrangement of shapes and textures gives Inventaire an abstract feel, highlighting emptiness, textures, and the material itself.

Laurent Gagnon considers himself an anthropologist of flea markets, exploring themes of identity and appropriation through found objects. His use of these artifacts evokes nostalgia and prompts reflection on planned obsolescence.

Paper Jam is part of a series called The User Manual, which includes three printed booklets created through silkscreen printing. The original sheet, taken from an outdated photocopier’s manual, shows the instructions for fixing a paper jam. In this work, Gagnon cleverly contrasts technical information about an industrial process with a handmade technique, adding a humorous touch to his art.

Denise Blackburn’s work focuses on the plant world and the various techniques of expression possible in printmaking. The artist is interested in the symbolism of the engraved imprint, and is as concerned with the pictorial aspect as with the work’s place in space. The repetition, reproduction and multiplication of images enable her to place greater emphasis on the message she wishes to share.

Comprising over a hundred miniature engravings, Apocalyptus echoes the dangers threatening the ecosystem. By applying eucalyptus and silver leaf to her etchings, Blackburn emphasizes a certain fragility, reflecting the ephemerality of life. The work thus reflects on the environmental crisis.

Julie Bellavance’s work explores scale and delicacy in nature through lithography. She starts with detailed drawings, which become the base for her prints. By creating variations of the same object, she shows it from different angles.

Balanomorpha I represents a barnacle, a small shell that houses a crustacean and attaches to underwater surfaces. Drawn with grease pencil on a lithographic stone, the barnacle appears from two angles, creating a floating, unusual shape. The lithographic process reverses the image and transfers it to paper, giving it a grainy, almost photographic look. Using only black ink, Bellavance highlights fine details and textures, emphasizing the fragility of the subject. Through this process, she explores how lithography can capture multiple viewpoints.

Cynthia Dinan-Mitchell’s work blends different artistic styles and techniques, combining drawing, collage, screen printing, and painting. Her pieces mix baroque and modern elements, often referencing still life or surrealism. She challenges the division between fine arts and decorative arts, fully embracing ornamentation in her practice.

Porcelain Clouds / Nuages de porcelaine includes personal and self-referential elements. The white shapes is in reference to sculptures she presented at the 2016 Trois-Rivières Sculpture Biennale. The hand in the piece is a drawing of her own right hand, the one she uses to create. She also incorporates everyday objects, like headphones, elevating them to decorative motifs alongside flowers and vases.

Noëlle Wharton-Ayer’s work uses landscapes to create personal and family stories, while also exploring how nature appears in daily life. She cuts, rearranges, layers, and transforms images to build her compositions.

Sappy Sapodilla is a series of 21 prints made from a photographic montage. Each piece shows an imagined landscape combining various images and videos. The artwork includes sapodilla leaves, fruits, and a man dressed as a skeleton. Printed using CMYK four-color process, the layered inks create a photographic effect. Some details, like eyes and organic shapes, are printed with iridescent ink.

This vibrant collage explores human connections and nature. It also reflects on Wharton-Ayer’s grandmother’s deep attachment to Guyana’s landscapes. The artist mixes personal memories with internet-sourced images, constructing a vision of Guyana shaped by imagination and family stories.

Since 2017, Tania Girard Savoie and Ludovic Fouquet have collaborated to create print-based artworks. They work together in a interactive way, allowing each artist to add to and transform the other’s work. This process results in collective pieces where shapes and textures overlap. Impression à quatre mains grand format is a series created in 2021. By combining screen printing and engraving, their work stands out for its vibrant colors and dynamic patterns.

In 2020, Girard Savoie conducted research on non-toxic engraving techniques. This led the duo to explore a dialogue between printmaking methods, creating hybrid works that blend disciplines. Layers and transparency shift the colors, emphasizing the unique qualities of each medium. The shapes they use are consistent with their artistic style but now feature new color combinations, which define this series.

While they work as a duo, both artists also have individual practices. Ludovic Fouquet is a visual artist and theater director, while Tania Girard Savoie is a visual artist actively involved with Engramme.

Jeffrey Poirier explores ecological themes in a broad sense, focusing on construction, organization, and urban expansion. His work raises questions about our fragile relationship with nature and how we occupy space. By examining systems, he highlights their delicate coexistence. He also uses exhibition spaces in an almost architectural way, creating structures that transform the viewer’s perception.

Contenir l’essaim 2.0 is made from temporary materials. Poirier put pieces of cardboard together with tape, creating an initial structure that serves as a mold. Using resin, he precisely recreates these cardboard forms, preserving the spontaneity of the creative act. The resulting cells form an interconnected ecosystem, where multiple elements come together as a single entity.

This work is also a metaphor for contained worlds. It recalls beehives but also other natural and mineral forms. Poirier is particularly interested in the interior of these organic structures. Through them, he introduces a sense of unexpected nature into built environments, reminding us that, despite modern life, we remain deeply connected to the natural world.

Guillaume Tardif’s artistic practice is deeply influenced by everyday materials and symbols. He explores how objects shape and fill the spaces around us. His work reflects on how society constantly transforms energy into matter and matter into energy through different systems. By assembling a variety of objects, he creates sculptures that reflect our time.

Tardif challenges our perception of familiar objects, making unexpected forms emerge from materials. De quoi t’as l’air is made from found items like hammered and bent exhaust pipes, electrical wires, and telephones. It highlights recurring shapes and textures in his work. Through this piece, the artist expresses his concerns and emotions about today’s world while emphasizing the rawness of materials. A calm-looking face emerges from the metal and tangled wires—giving life to matter and technology.

Dgino Cantin creates poetic artworks by examining everyday objects. He looks at the moment when something goes from being a common item to becoming art. By combining different elements, he blends memories, and his hybrid works reflect contemporary life.

Le plongeon is made of polystyrene and wood, and it stands above the viewer, changing how they see the exhibition space. The perspective makes it feel like a swimming pool. The silver feet, cast from a live model, suggest a full figure at the edge of the diving board. They are positioned to create tension, asking if one should jump in or turn back. This feeling of hesitation is emphasized by the big toe touching the edge of the board. The work is mainly poetic, hinting at actions and stories while referencing familiar ideas.

This piece was shown in 2016 at L’Œil de Poisson during the exhibition Changements de statut.

Fanny Mesnard’s work is inspired by her experiences in nature. Through walking, hunting, fishing, foraging, and traveling, the artist develops her imagination and her understanding of living things. She creates a personal mythology and explores interspecies connections. Her work also examines the body in motion and the territory it occupies.

The piece Esprit changeant, Chouette et créature marine is a self-supporting ceramic mask that features two benevolent faces: one of an owl and one of a marine creature. The four eyes, through which one can see, aim to convey the spirit of this hybrid being. The presence of such a poetic and enigmatic spirit exudes serenity and evokes a spiritual world rooted in the unconscious. The cloak, made and printed by the artist, enhances the animal’s presence and gives it a strong identity.

This work was first exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in 2019 as part of Manif d’art 9.

Jean-François Cooke and Pierre Sasseville are a well-known duo in Quebec, recognized for their contributions to public art. Together, they create sculptural works that blend ambivalence, unease, and humor.

This triptych features Virginia deer cut in half, with only the back half visible. Balancing on top of each other, the deer create a reflective effect, as if they are on the surface of a frozen lake. This doubling of the image references the famous myth of Narcissus, who was fascinated by his reflection and met a tragic end. The deer emerge from red bands that resemble streaks of blood. This vivid and violent composition contrasts with their vulnerability, as the deer are positioned in an improbable and delicate manner, highlighting their fragility while maintaining a precarious balance.

La Tranchée is also a great example of integrating techniques from the field of public art. The artists used durable materials like aluminum, electrostatic paint, and even anti-graffiti primer to create this striking work. These materials not only give the sculpture longevity but also impart a shiny and mysterious quality to the deer.

The BGL collective, made up of three artists from Quebec (Jasmin Bilodeau, Sébastien Giguère, and Nicolas Laverdière), is known for its humor and playful works. In 2015, BGL showcased Canadassimo, their studio installation, representing Canada at the Venice Biennale, one of the most renowned art events in the world. Upon returning, the trio created a series of sculptures inspired by this prominent work, including Extrait d’atelier avec Sealtest.

The piece features cans stacked atop a Sealtest milk crate, with colorful drips flowing down. Brushes and wooden sticks used for mixing paint are placed among the cans. Despite the worn and ordinary look of the recycled objects, BGL gives them new life as art. By elevating the forgotten nature of these items to an artistic form, the collective humorously addresses important issues, such as environmental concerns regarding discarded objects in today’s consumer society. Additionally, the precariousness of the artist’s situation is symbolized by the instability of the stack. The joy of creativity is evident in the vibrant colors and whimsical extravagance of the work.

Excerpt from the Studio with Sealtest is a unique piece that represents a significant artistic event, allowing BGL to share its playful and distinctive vision with the world.

Chantal Blackburn primarily works in painting. Inspired by everyday objects and places, she focuses on how memories intertwine with fiction over time. She explores how memory and recollections transform through images that may appear ambiguous or exaggerated, highlighting specific elements. These paintings resemble staged scenes or narratives that go beyond reality. Blackburn’s multiple childhood relocations have influenced her interest in home, familiar places, and how we remember them.

This artwork is part of a series where the artist reflects on her own bathroom, seen as a personal yet ordinary place. The bathroom symbolizes a relationship with oneself, one’s body, and vulnerability. In the painting, crystals are submerged in water in the sink to purify and recharge their energy. The artwork was inspired by a brief search on WikiHow.

Olivier De Serres’s painting is part of an approach based on pictorial research. He believes painting combines different neurological elements and reflects thought processes. To create this artistic ecosystem, he uses many layers of paint and techniques like glazing, brushing, blending, masking, drawing, airbrushing, and stenciling. He explores the richness of paint while pushing the limits of abstraction.

In this artwork and others, the artist plays with abstract forms and textures that suggest familiar things but remain unidentifiable.

Agnès Riverin is interested in quantum physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. In her work, she questions the relationships between nature, animals, and the cosmos. She explores these themes over extended periods, organizing her research into bodies of work.

Her series Constellation du lièvre, made up of thirty-two paintings, reflects the fragility of life on Earth, similar to a vanity. Using circular canvases, she applies solvent-free oil paint for ecological reasons. The hare, a recurring symbol in her work, poses in a way inspired by stories, showing her connection to this imagery. The drawings and patterns are created spontaneously as she paints. Riverin’s exploration provides a new view on disappearance and what remains after death.

Through various mediums and techniques, Laurence Belzile fully explores the visual properties of abstraction. She brings attention to the materiality of the medium, color, gestures, and textures, all of which animate the surface and highlight the painter’s touch. By pushing the boundaries of abstraction, she seeks surprises and the unexpected.

In Rompre, Belzile layers fine lines, blending them into a delicate composition. The shapes fade while enhancing the luminosity of the colors. To achieve this soft yet deep effect, she applies multiple layers of paint. Her choice of colors is intentional—they represent a reclaiming of traditionally feminine hues within the historically male-dominated tradition of abstract painting.

Richard Mill is primarily known for his painting but has also worked with drawing, sculpture, screen printing, photography, and architectural installations. His inspirations include minimalism, land art, and cave painting. Through painting, he explores the idea of non-verbal thinking—a thought process expressed in paint. He works in series while aiming to create a fresh experience with each piece.

In this work, his technique leans toward abstract expressionism. He brings the canvas to life with a limited color palette and repeated gestures and forms. His spontaneous approach allows the medium to reveal its full potential.

Thierry Arcand-Bossé has a figurative painting approach, drawing from cinematic, pop culture, and historical references. His work captures both everyday moments and major historical events.

With Illumination, he takes inspiration from the first nuclear explosion (Trinity, July 15, 1945). His interpretation highlights the light and colors of the blast, creating an image that is both striking and unsettling. The painting is divided into two parts: the upper section is finely detailed, while the lower section, painted with broader brushstrokes, adds a sense of tension. This pivotal moment in history foreshadowed the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Martin Bureau’s works are inherently political. Primarily working in painting and video, the artist draws inspiration from current events, offering a critical perspective on social, economic, and cultural issues. In his pictorial universe, catastrophe and entropy collide.

Saint-Déluge-de-la-Consolation 6 presents a dystopian image of fire floating on the ocean. This watercolor addresses the urgency of climate change, a central theme in Bureau’s work. The Saint-Déluge-de-la-Consolation series explores the concept of the Anthropocene—the geological era where human activity irreversibly shapes ecosystems. The delicate watercolor technique contrasts with the unsettling imagery, creating a poetic tension. The work serves as a stark reminder: when even water catches fire, it will be too late to act.

Alexanne Dunn primarily works with painting. Having grown up surrounded by industrial landscapes in Thetford Mines, she maintains a complex relationship with these abandoned mining sites. For her, they are both familiar childhood landmarks and reminders of the asbestos crisis and its lasting scars on her hometown. Using photographs as a starting point, she creates paintings that stand on their own, bordering on abstraction. Her work carries a tension between representation and the spatial presence of the canvas.

Réservoir (mines BC I et II) is part of a series exploring landscapes through close-up details. Dunn enlarges photographs of mining sites and selects only fragments, leading to a process of decontextualization. By zooming in on specific elements, she disrupts familiar visual cues, making it harder to recognize the original subject. Despite this abstraction, her titles anchor the works to their source, referencing the places where the images were taken. In this piece, she focuses on the rust patterns on a reservoir from the British-Canadian I and II mines, transforming them into the central subject of the painting.

Dan Brault’s work is defined by a bold and eclectic mix of styles and aesthetics. His baroque approach blends abstract and figurative elements drawn from popular culture. By confronting different images, he experiments with various techniques and borrows from genres like comic art and classical painting.

Le repos du peintre suggests a form of self-portrait. It depicts a lion resting by a fire under the moonlight, reflecting artistic freedom, the challenges of creation, and the control the artist has over his own life. Though surreal and suspended in time, the work maintains a strong balance between colors, textures, and symbols.

François Simard’s works stand out for their precision and systematic approach. He creates his paintings based on an initial guiding principle he calls a “probability system.” This constraint dictates the sequence of production. As the work progresses, repeated gestures gradually move beyond the original rule. This process leads to diverse and varied results.

Kedney-Bolduc is passionate about sports and cinema. Her work is fueled by her interest in the place of women, especially in unconventional fields. She gives a voice to those working in male-dominated industries, offering them a unique platform.

In Chemins de glace, she explores the world of ice canoeing, a traditional sport in the Québec region. The film follows one of the first women to compete in the race and documents the journey of an all-female team. Kedney-Bolduc combines footage from the 2016 Portneuf race with early 20th-century archives from a well-known ice canoeing family. By comparing these images, she highlights both the evolution and continuity of the sport. The film also gives space to the athletes, allowing them to share their experiences firsthand

David Nadeau Bernatchez creates cinematic works that focus on time, history, music, and resistance. Through his productions at Paysdenvie, he shares his films, lectures, and performances in various places around the world.

In his film Des Temps Morts, he explores the origins and evolution of baseball as a popular sport. The film highlights the contrast between the sport’s slow and fast moments, leading to interesting visual experiments. Set in Victoria Stadium in Quebec, Bernatchez captures the unique atmosphere and perspectives of the location to create surprising scenes. With narration by sports columnist Jean Dion, the film comments on the timing and language of baseball while showcasing the artist’s interest in the sport, its rituals, and the environment shared by players and fans.

Direction, narration and editing: David Nadeau Bernatchez
Narration writing (in collaboration): Jean Dion
Participation: Club de baseball des Capitales de Québec, CAN-AM League
Photography: Frédérick Pelletier, David Nadeau Bernatchez, Vincent Deschênes
Sound recording: Georges Sheehy, Jean-François Dugas,
Pierre Lanthier
Original music: Jasmin Cloutier, Fred Carrier,
Jean-Philippe Reny
Sound editing and mixing: Mathieu Campagna
Calibration: Studio Élément

Inspired by the works of Marina Abramović, Josiane Roberge created a gentle performance that explores human relationships and self-discovery. This video, a recording of the performance, features not only the artist but also some of her acquaintances. With a slow, poetic rhythm, Roberge invites each participant to share a kiss with her.

The performance is captured in a single take and presented in a diptych format, revealing an intimacy that is both offered and received. The various participants share knowing glances, tender smiles, and sometimes laughter with the artist. Through simple gestures that carry deep meaning, Roberge emphasizes human presence and the authenticity of connections. In La Prière, the love and friendship that bind each participant to the artist are palpable. These relationships unveil an intimacy strengthened by their close ties and quietly highlight their shared memories. While Roberge’s performance is both intimate and personal, the experience it conveys becomes collective, even contagious, for the participants.

This work was first presented at L’Œil de Poisson in 2014.

Independent filmmaker Jeremy Peter Allen anchors his work in fictional films while also delving into documentary projects. Fascinated by the unpredictable and surprising reactions of humans when confronted with death, he created the film Requiem contre un plafond in 2000, inspired by a short story by Tonino Benacquista.

This short film tells the story of a suicidal man disturbed by his upstairs neighbor, an amateur cellist who clumsily plays out-of-tune melodies. The constant scratching of the bow frustrates the main character as he tries to write his farewell letter. Distracted by the unpleasant sounds coming from above, he becomes obsessed with the music of Mozart and Bach, hindering his plans. He attempts to dissuade his neighbor by engaging in a musical duel, which will only end when the cellist finally puts down his bow for good. Through dark humor, this adaptation conveys a quirky yet poignant story.

Written, produced and directed by Jeremy Peter Allen

Cast: Yves Jacques, Jean-Christophe Guelpa,
Pierre Potvin
Photography: Steve Asselin
Sound recording: Martin Allard
Art Direction: Paul-Patrick Charbonneau
Original music: Helmut Lipsky
Editing: Jeremy Peter Allen
Sound mixing: Jérôme Boiteau

Anne-Marie Bouchard explores cinema and media arts in an eclectic and experimental way. She focuses on themes such as gesture, the ephemeral, and fragility. She is also fascinated by how sound and color influence our perceptions, while striving to reveal the aesthetic and poetic possibilities of images.

The quote by Hubert Reeves, “There is only one moral that matters in this story, one essential fact: we are but trivial sparks in the eyes of the universe. May we have the wisdom not to forget it,” greatly inspires Bouchard in creating Atomes en quête d’immatérialité. Sublime and intriguing, the video presents a kind of cosmic universe. By filming quantum dots (or photoluminescent nanoparticles), the artist recreates galaxies, stars, and planets with the infinitesimal, as if they were being observed through a telescope. She reminds us, like Reeves, that we are ephemeral, fragile beings, as tiny as particles in the scale of the macrocosm.

Created by Guillaume Fournier, Samuel Matteau, and Yannick Nolin, three filmmakers from Quebec, the Trilogie louisianaise offers a deep dive into the French-speaking South of the United States. This trio explores the documentary genre with the aim of both reproducing and reconstructing reality.

Their approach blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, aiming to articulate a poetic discourse around the cinematic medium. The trilogy includes Laissez les bons temps rouler (2017), Acadiana (2019), and Belle River (2022), each merging the perspectives of the artists. Committed to documenting the history and celebrating the identity of Louisiana’s Francophones, they highlight the cultural heritage and unique territory of the state. Both anthropological and open to interpretation, the films seek to illustrate the ongoing threat to Cajun culture while allowing residents to express themselves freely. Juxtaposing stunning long takes that feature lush nature, festivals, and vibrant communities, the documentaries showcase true examples of resilience.

The three short films in the trilogy have been presented at various festivals in Canada, the United States, Europe, and South America, and have won several awards: Acadiana received the 2019 Excellence Award from the Conseil de la Culture du Québec, while Laissez les bons temps rouler won the 2018 Coup de cœur scolaire award from the Canopé network at the Ciné Poème Festival in Bezons, France.

Johann Baron Lanteigne works with sculpture and installation, both in virtual and physical spaces. He explores screens in various ways, using it as both a material and a subject, leveraging it as a portal to the Web. He draws viewers into subcultures of the Internet and often presents staged scenes through animations.

Nature morte 1 is a work focused on the layering and documentation of different universes, examining the transitions between these realities. With this piece, the artist materializes his practice for the first time. He then uses the documentation of the work to immerse the viewer in an endless loop that explores our relationship with technology and virtual environments.

Diane Landry creates surprising and poetic works using everyday objects to change their meaning and create an unusual universe. She aims to show things from a completely different perspective, despite their ordinary nature. Her goal is to alter our perception and memory of preconceived ideas.

Brise-glace is primarily a recording of a performance of the same name, in which Landry paddles a canoe in the middle of a synthetic sea of ice. The illusion of a turbulent, nighttime ocean is achieved with plastic membranes that the artist shakes in a slow, repetitive motion. Stuck in the back-and-forth motion of the boat, the rower moves gracefully but never makes progress in her journey. The ripples and light reflections evoke waves and clouds. In her filmed performance, Landry suggests a territory that, despite its inhospitable nature, is visited by this icebreaker, capable of navigating unexplored places. It symbolizes the human desire for adventure and naivety, as well as their arrogant determination to explore, often without considering the negative impacts of such actions on the environment.

Jocelyn Robert works across various disciplines, including music, audio art, performance, installation, writing, and video art. He stands out for his works on definitions and their different contexts of interpretation. In his video works, like Vermeer, he enjoys “weaving” images together.

Vermeer was created in 1996, around the time Méduse was coming to life. In this piece, the artist films a technician from Honeywell,  responsible for adjusting heating devices, walking down the hallway on the fifth floor. Jocelyn Robert then walks through the same space, stepping on the same tile. This event is highlighted by the repetition of the action. Robert intertwines his images, making them interlock, vibrate, and flip. The two figures step on the same tile in the same space at the same moment, creating a collision between two realities. Additionally, the video is shot in low resolution, giving it a surreal quality and increasingly psychedelic atmosphere.

The works of Pierre&Marie creatively transform our view of everyday life. Their focus on the materiality of objects is present in their sculpture and their photographies. Their works reflect their interest in still life, staging, and storytelling. Self-taught, the artists work in various exhibition contexts, including public art.

Dissiper la magie, a photographic series started in 2014, has been displayed multiple times in public spaces. The series aims to document the ephemeral, a concept central to the duo’s approach. These three photographs show marshmallows in their pristine state, gradually burnt and blackened by fire, dramatically changing their appearance. The aesthetic transformation of these treats is a staged representation of how time impacts everyday objects. Transitioning into a state of destruction, Dissiper la magie highlights textures, light, and materiality in a way that is both dramatic and uplifting.

This work is emblematic of the Pierre&Marie collective’s practice. It has been shown in various locations around Quebec City, including the first edition of Jardin d’hiver (2020), inaugurated by Manif d’Art.

The Marswalkers duo, consisting of Alexandre Berthier and Karl-Otto von Oertzen, has been active in the art scene since 2000. Much of their work explores the gap between perception and reality in images. The two artists create illusions that distort the medium used to make images.

L’ombre du fleuve is a diptych made of two photographs taken at the Montreal Biodome. Though one might think the images are digitally altered, they are not: the photos show two different views of the Saint Lawrence River ecosystem section. This recreated yet artificial landscape produces an eerie effect that captivated the artists. The trompe-l’œil and set elements make the viewer feel immersed in an unreal, naturally strange world. The combination of artificiality and natural elements in the Biodome allows the Marswalkers to manipulate the image and question the role of reality in it.

Lucie Lefebvre’s work is deeply influenced by her strong connection to the land and biodiversity. The landscapes she creates push the boundaries of her medium. Her fascination with nature and photographic exploration is evident in this delicate piece.

The photograph, enhanced with white paint and subtly altered through digital editing, evokes an organic, anarchic, and poetic world. From the series Paysages inachevés, the piece features sea shrubs tightly interwoven. Captured on the cliffs of the Îles de la Madeleine, these tangled branches and stunted rhizomes are presented in a way that resembles caves or shelters. By adding paint and lightly editing the image, Lefebvre reveals a symbolic world, akin to the inside of a torso. These organic shapes, accompanied by the heart motif, strengthen the connection between the human body and nature, a theme central to her work. Entrailles uniquely reclaims the landscape, guiding the viewer to find a spiritual, underground, and dreamlike universe in the shadows.

Ivan Binet takes photos of landscapes, focusing on familiar places. He looks for moments that tell a story or capture a brief feeling, using different perspectives to create a sense of wonder.

Première neige sur la rivière Sainte-Anne is part of a series titled Répliques (d’après Krieghoff). Binet creates this photograph inspired by the works of the famous Canadian landscape artist Cornelius Krieghoff (1815-1872), known for painting several sites around Quebec City. Following in the footsteps of this 19th-century artist, Binet photographs the places Krieghoff depicted. Since the current landscape often differs from the original paintings, Binet puts considerable effort into composition and lighting. The result is a combination of viewpoints and digital manipulation, creating a picturesque photograph. While Première neige sur la rivière Sainte-Anne stands out with a composition reminiscent of painting, it highlights the landscape in a way that invites comparison to the original artwork. Through this, Binet reflects on the representation of the past and its impact on our society.

Hubert Gaudreau draws inspiration from documentary practices and explores the narrative potential of images. Influenced by his studies in anthropology, he is interested in the relationship between images and language, working with the idea that an image tells a story. His photographs question our perception of reality through the narratives they create.

This image is part of the series Les autres imaginaires, made possible by a Première Ovation grant and the support of VU. Here, the artist directs his gaze downward, pausing for a moment. At first glance, the scale is unclear, but the image reveals a hole in the asphalt, surrounded by white petals. Through this quiet scene, Gaudreau captures a poetic moment in daily life, finding beauty in contrasts.

Éloïse Plamondon-Pagé’s artistic practice is shaped by a journey between Québec and other places, where travel becomes a source of inspiration and renewal. Through various residencies around the world, she has learned to immerse herself in different landscapes and experiences. This allows her to develop a fresh perspective on the world—both at home and abroad—by transforming her experiences into artworks.

After a stay in Iceland, she developed a strong connection to video as a medium, filming light, water, and sky in a near-compulsive way. She later continued this research, collecting more contemplative video footage. In 2021, during a residency at VU, she revisited her video archives and reworked them into still images. With Saisons d’eau douce #2, she invites us to pause and appreciate the small details of the natural world around us. Rather than a nature to be conquered, her work presents a nature to be loved and preserved

Claudie Gagnon is an artist based in Québec, known for her living tableaux, sculptures, cabinets of curiosities, and eclectic chandeliers. She also works in public art and created Atome ou le fruit des étoiles, the artwork on the façade of Le Diamant. Her practice blends quotation and appropriation, with a playful and poetic approach.

Le ravissement de Dolci et Zurbarán is part of a series where Gagnon explores art history through detailed research. This body of work echoes her living tableaux, as she draws inspiration from paintings by Carlo Dolci (1616–1686) and Francisco de Zurbarán (1588–1664). She was particularly struck by the dramatic expressions in their works. In this piece, she creates a staged photograph, altering or adding details with paint. The hair and face, for example, are entirely repainted to heighten the character’s emotion. Looking closer, subtle and unexpected details emerge, such as the character’s hand gesture, reminiscent of the Star Trek salute. The small clamp in her hand is another clue that this portrait is not from another era. At first glance, Gagnon presents a classical portrait—but the longer you look, the stranger it becomes.

Charles-Frédérick Ouellet explores the relationship between natural forces, social traditions, and rituals through figures and traces in the landscape. He is particularly interested in the fisherman, the explorer, and the hunter—characters who both interact with and represent nature.

The figure of the fisherman reflects Ouellet’s fascination with exploration and adventure. Movement and travel are key elements of his artistic approach. In Marine, he revisits maritime imagery while focusing on how we inhabit this space. This photograph, taken aboard a trawler off the coast of Anticosti Island, offers an immersive perspective. It captures the distance from land and the unpredictable nature of the sea. The piece comes from Le Naufrage (2010–2017), a series that presents a dreamlike yet raw vision of the maritime world, shaped by the perspectives of fishermen and adventurers.

The work and its series were printed at VU in 2014 and have since been exhibited in various locations across Québec.

Annie Baillargeon is a multidisciplinary artist whose work combines photomontage, performance, and painting. Her compositions are striking and immersive, often featuring staged self-representations. This photomontage, part of Les amas, a project produced by VU, explores feminine mythologies.

The female body is central to Baillargeon’s artistic practice. In Les ruines des affamées 4, she multiplies her own image to represent four roles often assigned to women: the girl-woman, the mother-woman, the object-woman, and the human-woman. Set in a confined, theatrical space, the figures reflect an identity shaped by societal expectations. The accumulation of objects both conceals and reinforces these roles, highlighting the weight of cultural stereotypes.

The surreal and playful atmosphere creates a dreamlike world where performance extends beyond the photograph. Baillargeon also paints directly onto the image with acrylic and watercolor, adding depth to the relationship between the figures and their surroundings. Through this work, she questions how personal identity can be hidden or even erased by objects and ideas tied to femininity.

Alexis Gros-Louis is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is shaped by a variety of themes . Identity, Indigenous culture, systems of categorization, and obsolescence are just a few of them. Through photography, the artist explores these subjects and seeks to share the materiality of photography with the viewer.

This black-and-white photographic diptych depicts a winter landscape inhabited by trees, a muted sky, and a snow-covered lake. The serene and enigmatic scene reflects the artist’s deep connection to this lake and the Wendat myths and legends that are tied to it. Gros-Louis specifically references the story of Kabir Kouba, in which a great serpent, exorcized by Jesuit missionaries, flees into the forest along the shores of Lake Tanta’ré. For the artist, the serpent symbolizes Wendat culture, which the missionaries sought to weaken.

The photograph’s misty quality lends it a painterly aspect, as if it were a vision dreamed by the artist. By honoring his culture through this landscape, Gros-Louis establishes a dialogue with the land and its history, transforming this lake into an image suspended between reality and imagination.

Nathalie LeBlanc works with images, sound, and video, modifying them through both intentional and unintentional processes. Using various methods of transformation, she reworks her recordings to exhaust or distort them.

Sans titre is a collision of superimposed images depicting the rooftops of Québec City’s Saint-Roch district. To create this shifting, layered landscape, Nathalie LeBlanc combines photography, video, and sound. In 2017, she placed a miniature camera on the roof of the Méduse complex, capturing time-lapse footage of the buildings below. These images were then projected onto the initial photograph, which represents the very first frame recorded by the webcam. Without a precise focal point, the camera captures the movements of the urban landscape, defying conventional modes of observation. Viewers are freed from visual constraints and confronted with a striking blur, where reflections on windows, the sky, and the atmosphere shift in sync with the image sequences.

This manipulated landscape is accompanied by ambient sounds—the silence, the outdoors, and the presence of visitors recorded in the VU gallery. With this work, LeBlanc aims to evoke a sense of the past. Over time, Sans titre becomes a record of a constantly evolving landscape. Today, the rooftops of Saint-Roch have transformed along with the city’s urban and temporal shifts. The artwork, in turn, becomes memory, both an archive and a continuous variation.

LeBlanc’s piece was created entirely within the Méduse complex as part of a residency at L’Œil de Poisson.

Marion Gotti uses of photography, video and sound in her work. She experiments with a variety devices to deal with the experience of time and duration. Her creations fall somewhere between the strange and the poetic, sometimes taking the form of self-representations.

Projeté, produced in 2019 thanks to the sponsorship of La Bande Vidéo, calls for an exploration of the image within an interior space. To realize her work, Gotti uses a projector generating blue light, which is reflected on the spaces of her apartment, casting the shadow of a plant. Expressing both experimentation and intimate everyday life, the plant is photographed and its silhouette highlighted. The sound that accompanies the photograph diffuses the creaking of a floor and the noise of the projector used, recreating the atmosphere in which the artist created the image. The work questions the common and personal soul of the domestic interior. Through experimentation and the use of the everyday, Projeté seeks to explore fragmented terrains filled with the imaginary.

By repurposing and staging everyday objects, multidisciplinary artist Giorgia Volpe highlights an archived and forgotten memory. In Exercices de mémoire, developed over years of work and research, Volpe restores lost tangibility to collective memories.

Even as technological tools multiply at an unprecedented rate, there was a time when memory was imprinted onto physical media. Think of audio tapes or VHS cassettes, which have all but vanished from our surroundings. This is the material Volpe explores in her photography and installation work, aiming to facilitate the transmission of a universal memory. She reflects on past gestures—frozen on film—as well as the continuous flow of memory.

Exercices de mémoire is an ongoing project whose early stages were developed in the Mezzanine and Avatar studios between 2011 and 2012.

Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui is a multidisciplinary creator—writer, poet, performer, historian, anthropologist, and visual arts curator. He was born and raised in Wendake as a member of the Wolf Clan of the Wendat people. His first book, Yawendara et la forêt des Têtes-Coupées (2005), was a finalist for the Prix du Salon international du livre de Québec in 2006 in the children’s literature category. His poetry is recognized and distributed both nationally and internationally. As a multidisciplinary artist, he explores the porous boundaries between fiction and reality, literary genres, and artistic disciplines.

With (équilibre fragile), he questions the notion of originality and the complementarity of disciplines in his art practice. Initially created in 2018 for the poetry book Les visages de la terre (Éditions Hannenorak, 2019), the work represents the Wendat Creation Twins, Iouske’a and Tawihskaron’, on the verge of birth. This hybrid piece was created using digital composition and duplication techniques, based on graphite and ink drawings. A miniature version was first printed in series within the book; later, the artist reinterpreted the work by manually intervening on a new large-format print. This gesture might be seen as a return to the original creative act—writing poetry in a notebook. Yet, this is an illusion: the original poem was first typed on a computer. Like our world, (équilibre fragile) was shaped by a creative back-and-forth between opposites—between the material and digital realms. The final step in the creative process mirrored the myth itself: the creator’s breath upon his work. But this time, it was to blow away the remaining graphite dust from the surface.

Delphine Hébert-Marcoux works mainly with video. Through video installation and video performance, she multiplies devices that allow us to experience space in different ways. She questions the relationship between the viewer and his immediate space, playing with different parameters such as sound, lighting, video loops and double capture.

Ensemble presents a dark room, without landmarks, in which cleaning tools occupy the space. In this way, Hébert-Marcoux reveals the invisible work that is usually done out of sight. She emphasizes the tasks that are kept secret, as if she were showing the other side of the décor. Using two video channels, the artist generates synchronized images, showing the bucket and mop performing a kind of dance. The way in which the artist filmed this household choreography is unusual. Using two cameras, one fixed, the other moving, the objects are duplicated to show different points of view. Smoked Plexiglas, installed between the two cameras, creates a reflection that shows the reverse side of the work and the other side of the space. The work’s title, Ensemble, refers to the filming device used by the artist, the installation and the objects illustrated. Here, Hébert-Marcoux celebrates duality and duplication.

Delphine Hébert-Marcoux’s work was produced as part of Manif d’art 10.

Anne Ardouin is a visual artist and researcher, and a member of the Huron-Wendat Nation. Her work explores the imaginaries tied to landscapes and living environments. Holding a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from Concordia University and a Ph.D. in Landscape and Cultural Studies from the Université de Montréal, she presented the exhibition Une rivière merveilleuse (2019), in which she explored, through drawing, photography, and cartography, nine confluences of the Akiawenhrahk River in collaboration with the words of Andrée Levesque Sioui. Working between Québec and Opitciwan, she is also a project manager in the education sector.

Tho ihchien’ ha’yeht hewetha’ de ändichia’ – Je marche vers toi grand-mère is, for Anne Ardouin, the narrative of her quest for her ancestral identity. Through a series of six memory sketches, the artist weaves delicate connections with places of contemplation and fragments of landscapes encountered in the forests of Wendat and Atikamekw territories. The work follows a documentary approach, both poetic and scientific, aiming to create a dialogue between human stories and natural elements. Observing her sensations and the surrounding natural phenomena during her walks, Anne Ardouin invents an imaginary cartography of still, timeless places. In her drawings, she favors simple and spontaneous lines, seeking to describe spaces and invite reflection on the environment and the deep-rooted ties between identity and place.

Camille Bernard-Gravel’s multidisciplinary practice is at the intersections of natural and technological worlds. Samares serves as a metaphor for the ever-changing natural environment, featuring a multitude of small maple seeds, meticulously reproduced in metallic material. They twirl and drift in response to an artificial breeze generated by fans. This work is the result of landscape observations and “low-tech tinkering.”

This kinetic installation recreates a natural spectacle—one of wind, sound, and perpetual undulations. Cut from a thin mylar film, the delicate “helicopters” dance, producing a soft rustling sound and shimmering reflections reminiscent of water. Bernard-Gravel highlights overlooked natural systems, drawing attention to the performative and hypnotic qualities of everyday phenomena. Samares aims to captivate the viewer, emphasizing both the aesthetic and dynamic forces of nature. By revealing these mechanisms, the artist allows the audience to marvel at the enchanting, ever-evolving beauty of the natural world.

The work was notably presented in 2018 as part of the Mois Multi festival in Québec.

In harmony with nature, Anne-Marie Proulx offers a unique perspective on the relationship between living beings and their environment. Her poetic universe, materialized through photography, explores living and natural spaces with a focus on the sharing of ideas and perspectives. Terres intérieures originates from Terres éloquentes, a work created in 2019 for Manif d’art 9. In this piece, Proulx works with the Innu territory, the nutshimit.

The powerful and essential connection between living beings and natural spaces is central to Proulx’s approach, as it fosters meaningful discussions. Set in a tent, deep in nature, Proulx and her friend Mathias Mark engage in a dialogue, sharing what this tent represents to each of them. Mark’s words, first spoken in Innu and then in French, reflect his emotions and impressions of the space. The tent becomes a landmark, with images arranged in a constellation-like pattern by the artist, highlighting the play of light and the shadows of trees cast onto the fabric. In the heart of the nutshimit, Proulx invites us to explore, discover, and immerse ourselves in the natural forces that emerge from it. This work offers an intimate perspective on the perception of the land and the spirit that arises from these dialogues, encouraging a meticulous observation of the beings and forces inhabiting nature. Despite the silence of the landscapes, the piece carries the voice of Innu lands, telling a poetic story of the territory, its spirits, and the deep connections between living beings and nature.

This work was made possible with the support of Avatar, VU, and Manif d’art.

Teharihulen Michel Savard, member of the Wendake’s Akiawenrahk Longhouse, is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who celebrates the culture and imagination of his people. In each of his works, he integrates the Wendat experience through various symbols and their rich history.

Prémices à une guerre bactériologique et religieuse en terre d’Amérique ( The beginnings of bacteriological and religious warfare on American soil ) has a most evocative title. This large blanket, embellished with painted motifs and rosaries, represents a dark chapter in Quebec’s colonial history. As the first Europeans arrived in the New World, diseases began to spread, killing many native people. In this work, bacteria completely cover the blanket, which is usually a symbol of refuge and comfort. The presence of rosaries shows the negative influence of the Catholic religion, which tried to weaken First Nations culture.

Proud of his origins, Savard is an exemplary figure in the affirmation of indigenous identity.

In his practice, Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf takes a keen interest in contemporary and popular discourses that define our era. With humor, he creates works based on his observations of society, offering his own perspective on Québécois popular culture.

His work examines society’s relationship with contemporary icons from a sociological angle. Le Québec en Floride (Québec in Florida) consists of eight drawings, all created using pages from an old book of the same name, published in the 1980s. Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf cuts into the pages of this book and overlays bold, monochrome bursts of color, completely transforming the image’s original narrative. The action captured in each photograph is accentuated in a way that draws attention to particular expressions or dynamic elements within the scene. By emphasizing cheerful faces and movements through the contrast of vivid color against black and white, the artist creates a striking and playful visual impact.

Deeply connected to Wendat traditional arts, Manon Sioui has a strong interest in the various craft practices from her culture.

This diptych is a powerful commentary on the past and present, critiquing the destructive nature of contemporary ways of life. The first banner, Nionwentsio d’hier, evokes a lush territory where the Wendat people once lived and thrived. In contrast, Nionwentsio d’aujourd’hui depicts the same landscape, now exploited, weakened, and enslaved by the current capitalist system. At the top of each banner, a black band represents a wampum, illustrating trees (triangles pointing upward) and humans (triangles pointing downward) interconnected. On the past banner, the wampum symbolizes the beginning of Creation, where humans coexisted with trees. In the present, the pattern is reversed: the tree stands alone, surviving amidst humanity. With this work, which serves both as an artistic piece and a statement, Sioui presents nature as the victim of our time. Her piece serves as a stark reminder that we must not wait until only one tree remains standing to take action.

From Wendake, Ludovic Boney stands out for his large-scale public artworks. Inspired by minimalism, his monumental sculptures play with color, form and the location in which they are set. His pieces, accessible to all, are influenced by their surroundings and harmonized with both landscape and architecture.

The Dessin series is made from large circles of sandpaper. These huge sheets were used to polish Boney’s sculptures: each drawing can thus be associated to a specific art work and its date of creation. Instead of discarding the sheets when they were too worn, the artist used colored pencils to mark the material. The sandblasted paper of Dessin 12 is a real witness to the making of a sculpture, embellished with bright colors. Like a target, circles accumulate to form concentric lines, contrasting with the color of the sandpaper to create an abstract, hypnotic effect.

Eveline Boulva’s work is about territories occupied by humans. Through drawing, she transcribes her objective observations. Her primary aim is to understand the impact of human activity on the environment. As a result, her work features landscapes marked by agriculture, industries and roads – places that allow us to decipher the relationships between people and their living environments.

Myriam Lambert explores notions of identity and time through sound art, electronic art, installation, performance and literature.

La déconstruction du temps is designed to evolve subtly and progressively. This sound composition of repetitive motifs was developed as an introduction to the performance Contacts, created for the closing event of the 30th anniversary of Avatar, presented by Rad’art (Italy), at the Beaumont Cinema in 2023.

Through a kaleidoscope of sound, this composition offers a slow journey from the delicate quiver of string instruments to the rhythmic beats of percussion and breaths. Gradually, these sound patterns interweave and build, like pieces of an audio puzzle slowly coming together; the composition gains in complexity, offering a hypnotic atmosphere. Reaching a climax, the familiar motifs begin to dissect and disintegrate, like a slowly fading pulse. In this way, this carefully orchestrated sound composition not only serves as a prologue to the Contacts performance, but also embodies an exploration of temporality.

Mélanie Bédard is interested in the singular way in which each individual views his environment. At the heart of her concerns is the notion of experiential landscape, which she describes as a global landscape, experienced both as an interaction between the individual and his or her environment, and as a personal, introspective experience.

Tapis is a single strip from the Objets-Matières series in phase 1 of the installation project L’oiseau qui plane et ne cesse d’agrandir son cercle. On a 4′ x 8′ screen, Mélanie Bédard invites artists to a creative dialogue embodied in matter. Participants explore a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, knitting, petit point and sound work. In a spirit of cooperation and freedom, these creative gestures are staged collaboratively and spontaneously. The animated films, produced frame by frame, emerge from an open and intuitive creative laboratory, celebrating friendship and the fusion of technics.

Since 2016, Julien Lebargy has been working on a vast multidisciplinary project (sculpture, painting, performance, conceptual project, writing, etc.) entitled Spatial Discovery Program for Those Who Mix Numbers and Poetry (S4DP+). Under the guise of rigorous scientific methods, his works confront authority through play, humor and poetry. His interest in procedures and protocols translates into pseudoscientific experiments and conceptual projects in which his personal rules confront his inability to follow authority.

Le Comité d’Organisation de la Solitude Spatiale (C.O.S.S) supervise 604,800 secondes de la vie de Julien Lebargy is a week-long performance. The performance, carried out from September 7 to 14, 2018, involved living alone in an enclosed space as part of training for a fictional future space voyage. A manual dictated each of the artist’s movements minute by minute under the surveillance of security cameras and C.O.S.S. administrators.

This experiment, filmed and broadcast live in the Manif d’art showcase/gallery in 2018, on YouTube and Twitch, experiments with isolation, loneliness, alienation and the relationship to authority.

This video device allows the viewer to discover the entire performance in fragments using the buttons on the left of the screen. The Lebargy channel presents the project through a series of videos made by Julien during his isolation, while the C.O.S.S. channel presents the performance as seen by the public and the project’s administrators.

Paul Brunet’s work embraces the aesthetics of appropriation and disruption. By reclaiming a multitude of images and pictorial approaches, he explores the possible shifts and distortions within painting. While popular icons once played a major role in his practice, they have now largely been replaced by scenes drawn from everyday life, lending a more intimate dimension to his work. Integrating digital tools into the conception of his pieces, Brunet reflects on the gap between painting and digital imagery, while maintaining a strong focus on the materiality of paint itself.

Dans la forêt, specially created for the Storytelling exhibition as part of Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations, transcends the boundaries of figuration. Reinterpreting a popular culture photograph (Cara Delevingne photographed by Jonnie Craig in a series titled Bourne in The Woods), the artwork offers a new and altered vision of the original image’s meaning. Immersing itself in a mysterious pictorial universe, every element—from texture to color palette—is redefined. The character’s face, with its accentuated features, evokes a notion of gender fluidity, inviting viewers to reflect on the diversity of identities in contemporary society.

Nos cœurs ratchets, created as part of Yahndawa’ : Portages entre Wendake et Québec (2022), is the result of a meeting between two artistic universes, which harmoniously collide within a video triptych. With this work, Dgino Cantin and Aïcha Bastien-N’Diaye join forces in a surprising union of dance, sculpture and installation.

The work is a trace of a performance that took place at L’Œil de Poisson in 2022. It traverses diverse universes, such as hunting, boxing and cabarets. Cantin’s sculptures are transformed into improbable fashion accessories, which Bastien-N’Diaye, driven by impulsive gestures, breaks down with both violence and poetry. As faces press against the floor, shards of plaster emerge, marking the space with the imprint of movement and action.

Jacynthe Carrier explores the relationship between the body and the environment through performative gatherings. By inviting participants to engage in actions and inhabit specific spaces, the artist examines notions of presence and connection to the land. Her works offer a poetic vision of the collective body.

This photograph is a carefully constructed visual composition presenting an assemblage of objects and figures transformed into living props. The resulting narrative imbues the work with an air of mystery, reminiscent of The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault (1818–1819). Through photography, Carrier captures the ephemeral traces of performance, preserving them in an enigmatic yet delicate composition. The individuals in her images interact with numerous symbolic accessories, their bodies becoming ornamental elements that enrich the narrative.

The work Le Naufrage was created during a residency at VU in 2009 and featured in the artist’s first solo exhibition.

Audrée Demers-Roberge is drawn to nature, specifically to the dynamics that shape natural environments and the organisms that inhabit them. She seeks to cultivate a close relationship with these elements. For her, territory is a space of collective memory, where she carries out actions and interventions, with analog photography and video often serving as the sole witnesses. Her practice is fundamentally interdisciplinary, allowing different mediums to coexist and evolve simultaneously. Travel also plays a crucial role in her work, generating pivotal moments in her creative process.

The J’aime la géologie series, initiated in 2019, consists of four works depicting geological landscapes. Using colored pencils and precisely cut cardboard, the artist presents vibrant, shimmering rock formations that oscillate between recognizable objects and abstract shapes and textures. The textures created through drawing gestures and reflective surfaces evoke minerals embedded in raw stone, highlighting the natural aesthetics of these formations.

J’aime la géologie III was exhibited at the Claire-Martin Library as part of Manif d’art in 2021.

Reno Salvail was an adventurous artist who used his expeditions a source of inspiration for his creations. Combining physical experiences with a more intellectual approach, Salvail’s works were the result of feats he accomplished, more specifically his exploration of remote and untamed territories.

Here, Salvail’s photograph embodies his fascination with adventure and territorial appropriation.

Le réveil de l’ours noir is part of an artistic project titled Les rivières de feu (2004–2010), for which the artist traveled to various volcanic sites around the world to create in situ works. During an expedition to the Great Fault of Lake Frotet, north of Chibougamau, Salvail encountered a massive black figure. Startled and confused by the sight of the bear, he instinctively reached for a small camera and captured a photo before the animal vanished into the forest. The image’s blur and low resolution give it a distinctive quality, making it resemble a charcoal drawing rather than a photograph. The blurriness also reflects the intensity of the moment—the electrifying encounter with the bear.

Reno Salvail is remembered as a dedicated artist and passionate teacher, whose forty-year career left a lasting impact. His singular vision came to life through works exhibited in Quebec and internationally.

Paryse Martin’s whimsical universe was inspired by nature, poetry, and fantastical tales. She created dreamlike works where theatricality met reality, resulting in pieces that are both strange and poetic. Her art explored the paradoxes of human life, bringing together opposing themes such as the everyday life and the spectacular, the human and the beast, realism and magic.

In La raison du mouvement no. 1, all the elements influence each other. Assembled like a riddle, the drawing reveals a harmonious eclecticism, in which animals, characters and fantastical objects form a path: each line leading the viewer’s gaze to another element. For Martin, this type of representation was an opportunity to reflect on the world around us.

A professor at Université Laval’s École d’art, Paryse Martin is remembered as a prolific and admired artist, whose pedagogy was marked by great generosity.

Benoît Blondeau uses recycled materials to create paintings and sculptures. His works are the result of accidental encounters with matter. Resulting, among other things, from work with paint and fabric, his works present different patterns and shapes, creating a variety of perceptual games. The artist also uses textiles for their emotional charge, recalling playfulness, childhood and the domestic universe.

Idra Labrie seeks the sublime in the ordinary. In order to achieve it, he experiments with photography. His artistic practice is defined by an interest in both archaic and technological process, combined with a minimalist aesthetic. His recent series, such as Travaux nordiques and Racinaires, explore notions of transience and natural cycles, creating ambiguous and mysterious structures that reflect temporality and transformation.

Monolithe I, part of the Travaux nordiques series produced between 2019 and 2022, is representative of Labrie’s work. These photographs document a process of growing frost on glass plates, carried out outdoors in Quebec winter conditions. Despite the constraints and unpredictability of this experimental process, the artist manages to capture strange and mysterious images. Monolithe I transcends flatness, evoking instead a three-dimensional geological formation. This photographic series had to be put on hold due to climate change, as its crystal growth system requires temperatures below -25°C for several days to materialize. However, the photographer’s experiments continue in the Racinaires series, where he explores controlled indeterminacy through the cultivation of plants.

This work was presented at the m u t a t i o exhibition at VU’s Espace Européen in 2022.

Mylène Michaud uses textile for its historical and symbolic richness as well as for the distinctive materiality of the fiber. Fusing artisanal techniques with contemporary technological tools, the artist transposes virtual data into elaborate knits based on satellite images of the territory. She is interested in the relationship between pixel and image, while creating an artistic language where tradition and modernity meet.

In this work, Michaud explores the characteristics of Brutalist architecture by depicting Boston’s City Hall. Using images taken from Google Maps, she uses jacquard knitting to reproduce a street view image of the building, the distortion of which is amplified by the software’s viewing angles. Opposing the particularities of Brutalist architecture with those of jacquard knitting, the artist chose to present the work inside out, to reveal the threads protruding from the knitted pattern.

The work was conceived for the exhibition Brutalisme Parallèle, curated by Péio Eliceiry and shown at L’Œil de Poisson and VU in summer 2023.

Catherine Bélanger explores intangible heritage through an interdisciplinary approach focused on everyday rituals. Her approach, based on encounter and gift, highlights certain human activities through animation, video, sound art and digital and interactive installation. Her method of anthropological capture preserves these gestures, highlighting their importance in our society. Her work refers to our individual and collective identity.

Margot Fortin, 70 and Marcia Lalonde, 8, Québec is the result of a collaboration with Avatar and La Bande Vidéo, part of the larger project Recueil de gestes pour nourrir. This project, carried out in partnership with the Musée de la civilisation de Québec and supported by an Arts multi grant from Première Ovation, constitutes a repertoire of individual gestures performed in the kitchen space by women.

Bélanger focuses on Margot Fortin and her granddaughter Marcia Lalonde, capturing their tender culinary gestures. The movements are extracted using traditional rotoscoping animation. These gestures, symbolic of intergenerational transmission, are preserved and transposed into the visual form of an animated cartogram that unfolds in a drawn, uncluttered representation of the kitchen . The soundscape, punctuated by the delicate repetitive sound of the flour sieve, underlines the fragility of these movements and the precariousness of their memory. In a way, the work restores value to these human actions.

Sound artist Guillaume Côté explores territorial, linguistic and social dynamics specific to Quebec, using a mix of concrete, synthetic and vocal materials. His artistic research is based on the encounter with others through a narrative musical language, while exploring the abstraction of modular systems. He is co-founder of the audio-digital creation company Trames, of the Falaises collective, and a member of the Aubes duo.

Discrete Stream of Light, is his first solo publication after collaborating on over twenty projects. The piece premiered in March 2022 at the end of an endless winter. The piece is divided into four distinct movements. The artist uses synthesizers to distance himself from the figurative nature of sound recording. Through synthesis, he emphasizes the modular nature of sound and its ability to create images for the audience.

For the Collection Méduse, Côté presents a derivation of his original work, intended to be enjoyed with headphones.

For the exhibition Yahndawa’ : Portages entre Wendake et Québec (2022), Jeffrey Poirier, Andrée Levesque Sioui and Érika Hagen-Veilleux joined forces to create a monumental work echoing the inherent forces of nature and encounters. Remodeled for the purposes of the Méduse Collection, the installation refers directly to the theme of the exhibition that gave birth to it, the river (Yahndawa’ in Wendat).
The monolith created by Poirier is crossed by a huge arrow, hand-woven by the trio, whose technique was taught to Poirier and Hagen-Veilleux by Levesque Sioui as part of the Yahndawa’ project. This traditional technique is a meeting point for Wendat and Québécois cultures: arrow belts were historically trade objects for French Canadians, and also objects of adornment for the Wendat Nation.
Between the rigid geometry of the device and the suppleness of the wool, a strong contrast emerges, reinventing references to the aquatic environment. The collective drew inspiration from water and geology to translate the movements into an abstract form. It also refers to what can be seen and what is hidden, reflecting on our perception of aquatic environments. In its colors, patterns and form, the arrow is a poetic nod to the co-creative process that gave birth to the work.

The work was exhibited at L’Œil de Poisson in 2022.

Wampum-vitrail #3 is part of a series of works inspired by a Wendat wampum designed in 1678 at the Jesuit mission in Lorette, near Quebec City. The first installation in the series was presented at L’Œil de Poisson in 2022, as part of the Yahndawa’ exhibition.

Wampum plays an important political and spiritual role for various Indigenous nations in the northeastern part of the continent. Their meaning is encoded in pictograms formed by cylindrical purple and white beads carved from marine shells. The 1678 wampum  features a Latin prayer dictated by the missionaries: VIRGINI PARITURÆ VOTUM HURONUM (“Huron Vow to the Virgin who is about to give birth”). The Wendat (“Huron”) converts donated it to Chartres Cathedral in France. This wampum is trimmed with red-dyed braided porcupine quills, in continuity with tradition: clam for the purple and whelk for the white. However, European black and white glass beads  have also been inserted. Nicolas Renaud sees in this object a form of syncretism in which a Wendat worldview resides behind the Catholic rupture. In particular, he observes that the word “Huronum” is the only one without any of the foreign beads, perhaps signifying a demarcation of identity. In light boxes, he reproduces their configuration as a possible secret code, which retains its mystery, but suggests an intentionality beyond the written words, in the materials and principles of wampum.

The wampum suspended from the window in turn combines shell and glass, with non-traditional materials while including clam cylinders, whose purple lines evoke a dislocated cross. The shape in the center echoes the ancient symbol of the “Council Fire”, the political heart of the nation, where the words of all can “unite in one voice”. On either side, the double motif plays on the reversibility of another ancestral pictogram, both axe and pipe. For the artist, this coexistence of warrior and diplomat is a contemporary reflection of the demands of decolonization. Through backlighting and color, the three elements of the installation combine nostalgia for the Lite-Brite toy with references to the stained-glass windows of Chartres. Nicolas Renaud seeks ways to reconnect with the thinking of his Wendat ancestors, while articulating the dualities of mixed identity.

Anne-Marie Groulx creates abstract textile objects that reflect her interest in architectural structures. Working with layers, her weavings reflect the artist’s knowledge and technical resources. The work is  woven on a Jacquard loom. The way in which the piece is presented is also thought out. This is the case for all of her series Une vague idée d’une partie universelle non singulière, to which Système de coordonnées cartésiennes 02 belongs.

In this work, the artist uses digital sketches to generate random superimpositions, revealing the structure of the weave, with its grid pattern and layers of threads. Patterns of different colors and thicknesses intertwine to create a vibrant structure of contrasts. They reveal the technical nature of the object, while highlighting the importance of each thread in forming the bands and creating the different hues.

Trained in artisanal woodworking, Olivier Roberge creates miniature sculptural landscapes that resemble poetic worlds. Drawing inspiration from the craftsmanship of model makers, he creates landscapes that blend bucolic nature and technology, imagination and lucidity, past, present and future, in an attempt to unify the seemingly separate. In this way, he works on (in)compatibility, questioning our relationship with nature and our understanding of the world.

Le corps est un belvédère or You Are The Most Beautiful Scenery I Have Ever Seen questions the function of belvederes, which are often aesthetically unsuited to their environment. Placed at the top of a mountain, this wobbly-looking construction evokes our own fragility and, by virtue of its scale, invites us to consider our own bodies as a belvedere. The work encourages us to marvel at the landscape, wherever we happen to be. Placed in a transparent box on all sides, the sculpture allows spectators to look at other observers, transforming them into giants.

Based in Quebec City since 1975, Bill Vincent is interested in the passage of time, mortality and memory. During the two years of the pandemic, the artist produced a series of paintings entitled Exsiccatae.

vanity in art history refers to that which does not last. In it, we find death, life, time and ephemeral materials. Interested in this phenomenon, Vincent made studies of plants.

Painting #4096 presents a flower, which the artist has first dried and pressed, and then photographed on a light box. By inverting the colors of the photograph, which also serves as a model for his paintings, Vincent produces a surprising effect similar to a vaporous X-ray. In fact, its transparency reveals all the details hidden from the naked eye, such as the veins and the radiant core. With his herbarium emphasize on the organic form and its immortalization in paint. For if the flower disappears one day, its image remains and, in so doing, becomes the memory of a past life. Like a memento mori (“remember that you are mortal” in Latin), Vincent’s hyper-realistic work reminds us that everything comes to an end, and that it’s impossible to avoid it.

Luca Fortin’s practice oscillates between art and architecture, working with the durability of materials and the beauty of aging. His work questions the contrasts between the solidity of matter and its vulnerability to the passage of time. Through repeated gestures, he creates abstract compositions that evoke an ethereal, almost indefinable surface. In his artistic process, he leaves much to the unexpected, emphasizing the fragility and malleability of the materials he uses.

In this work, Fortin is inspired by the fragility and malleability of paper. Using paint and water to render the surface of the paper unstable, he seeks to provoke unexpected paths, allowing free, spontaneous gestures to emerge.

The silkscreen prints used in this work were produced during a creative residency at Engramme in 2014, followed by an exhibition in 2015. The additional prints resulting from this residency became the primary materials for numerous pictorial explorations involving paper, of which this creation is a direct witness.

Amélie Laurence Fortin creates futuristic narratives in which objects bear witness to past or future actions. Her recent projects question current technological upheavals, while favoring a radical, monumental and performative formal approach. In her work, opaque feminist fictional narratives, as well as an ambiguity installed between the technical and the magical, create an emergence of the random.

In acoustic science, sound is a vibratory movement, periodic or quasi-periodic, simple or compound, of determined fundamental frequency and timbre, consisting of a disturbance in the pressure, stress, displacement or velocity of material waves propagating together or in isolation in an elastic medium, and capable of causing an auditory sensation. (Source: CNRTL)

DECADE 2018-2022 highlights the physics of sound in two different ways: by capturing the sound of rock impacts thrown onto a fresh ice surface on the island of Svalbard (Norway) and by broadcasting this sound track onto a copper and foamcore plate. Through the richness of the recording and the choice of materials used to transmit the sound, this work creates a new orchestration of the landscape. In the initial mode of presentation, the reflective surface of the copper enriched the sound experience by reflecting the vibrations of light on the floor, thus revealing the temporality of light in architectural space. By broadcasting a sound work featuring the sounds of glaciers peeling away, on a metal plate shining like a sun, DECADE 2018-2022 creates a symbolic opposition between the idealized Nordic landscape and the reality of its accelerated disappearance.

France McNeil draws inspiration from tangles of branches to create geometric abstractions, revealing the complexity, beauty and fragility of nature. Her representations, inspired by the forest, stand as metaphors for the ties that bind human beings to their environment, underscoring the connections that weave, link and identify living beings.

Conversation autour d’une planète bleue explores the communication network of trees through their complex root systems. It depicts the blue planet as a nest constructed from a collage of engravings evoking nourishing roots and rootlets. This work combines printmaking and painting to express McNeil’s concern for the environment, and to call us to action in the face of the threat to ecosystems posed by human activities. In this work, the tree becomes a symbol of resilience. The forest fires of summer 2023 reinforced this reflection and heightened the urgency of action, leading the artist to choose this particular work for the Méduse Collection.

Using simple mechanical processes, Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne creates kinetic and sonic sculptures from modest, often salvaged or industrial materials. The strength of these raw materials, and the very structure of her creations, are put to the test through imprecise, repetitive movements, revealing their fragility, flexibility and, by extension, their poetry. Her works, unstable and sometimes ephemeral, oscillate between creation and destruction, generating forms in a transitory state.

The installation Plafond suspendu (Suspended Ceiling) brings together several kinetic and sonic sculptures constructed from suspended ceiling tiles, a common material found in public buildings and basements in Quebec homes. Each sculpture is animated by its own movement, testing the resistance of its material and structure. Over time, these sculptures tend to crumble, revealing their fragility and ephemerality.

Christine Comeau explores mobility as a metaphor for the quest for identity, both personal and collective. She designs temporary shelters inspired by the tents of nomadic peoples, symbolizing both refuge and an ever-evolving identity shaped by travel. Her creations also include “relational garments” that encourage sharing and negotiation between two people who must fit inside. This approach translates into performative installations that induce a sense of disorientation, both inside and out.

This image is taken from the multidisciplinary project Le dépouillement de l’anguille, in which slow, sober choreographies are performed in the wilderness of the northern Lac-Saint-Jean region. The performances, documented by video sequences and photographs, explore notions of border, territory, landscape and identity. Three performers execute mysterious choreographies in the landscape, moving slowly while undressing or gradually dressing to reveal their bodies in metamorphosis.

This multidisciplinary, collaborative project was produced as part of a week-long residency at the Parc régional des Grandes-Rivières, supported by a Canada Council for the Arts creation grant and in partnership with the Parc régional des Grandes-Rivières.

Choreography: Sarah Blid
Dance: Sara Hanley, Maria Kefirova and James Viveiros
Video documentation : Marc-André Bernier
Soundtrack: David Ryshpan

Karole Biron explores our relationship with architectural, urban and private spaces. She uses objects, images and installations to reflect on time, space, movement and the way we perceive them. Her projects, sometimes immersive, play on accumulation, the amplification of details and visual contrasts, while paying particular attention to creative processes.

Morceaux urbains is an installation work initially composed of hundreds of images of manholes and road elements. This accumulation of decontextualized details underlines their banal visual presence in the urban landscape, while transforming them into graphic symbols. These visual are complemented by a soundtrack in which we hear the footsteps on urban surfaces in Quebec City and Sao Paulo. The sounds, materials and obstacles of movement are captured at ground level by shoes deformed by pebbles. This work invites us to reflect on our bodies and our experience of the city through our senses, notably by highlighting the sound and visual texture of the ground and the urban environment.

François Mathieu celebrates the physical presence of objects and the pleasure of creating, deconstructing and starting again. Focusing on spheres in his recent work, he explores domes, cupolas and other round objects using a variety of materials and scales, emphasizing on experimentation and play. His work also explores poetic issues, putting together similar and contrasting materials and forms.

Les coins ronds is the result of Mathieu’s research into both form and materials over recent years. In this work, the wooden form is carved from a block of different species of wood. His experience in public art also led to him exploring bronze as a material, developing techniques for molding his wooden sculptures. He now incorporates bronze into his work, illustrating his interest in marrying noble and recycled materials.

Isabelle Demers creates autonomous ecosystems, combining plants, animasl and minerals in a state that is both static and dynamic. Her works take the form of paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations. Through her works, the artist develops a narrative through the accumulation and renewal of images, combining science, craft and aesthetics.

Demers uses pyrography to inscribe her animals in matter, and watercolors to illustrate her plants. Her works are layered, and she makes sure to leave clues so that the public can create their own narrative.

Guided by the concept of habitat in ecology, Alissa Bilodeau creates sculptures and textile installations based on fiber and metal work.
Fucus no. 1 evokes a flourishing marine organism, reflecting Bilodeau’s fascination with the proliferation of invasive organisms. Initially crocheted, the sculpture is then cast in aluminum using the lost-wax casting technique. This process enables the artist to transcend the boundaries of textiles and perpetuate her work, while retaining the suppleness and distinctive imprint of the textile fiber.

Amélie Proulx’s work explores the perpetual metamorphosis of living things. She is particularly interested in flora and fauna, especially birds living in urban environments. Using techniques derived from crafts, she pushes the limits of the material, leaving room for the unexpected. Her approach transcends the artisanal aspect of ceramics. Her works bear witness to a moving fragility,  inbetween rationality and intuition.

The Dactyles – Larus series was created by assembling hundreds of gull legs in containers. The bird’s legs, individually molded and assembled upright, undergo a transformation during firing. Under extreme heat, they begin to fuse, soften and collapse, taking on a less controlled, organic appearance. This process captures a precise moment when the porcelain changes shape, suggesting a tension between the organic and the inorganic, as well as a loss of control over the final result. The container, meanwhile, is molded on a plastic bucket, chosen for its common presence in the artist’s studio and its resemblance to a flowerpot. In contrast to the bird’s feet, the materials and temperature used to mold the bucket are perfectly controlled, and the resulting finish is reminiscent of plastic, albeit porcelain.