Artists

Natacha Clitandre completed a B.A. in visual arts at UQAM in 2000. In 2007, she completed a Master's degree in Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art and New Media at Université Paris 8 and École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD). As part of her studies, she spent time at Brown University and RISD, in Providence, Rhode Island.

As part of her work process, she wanders the city to document the shifting poles of attraction, collecting data and narratives that help identify what influences our sense of belonging. Using ubiquitous technological devices, she creates mechanisms that highlight the relationship between the artist, the public and our shared spaces. By inviting us to take a different look, she seeks to create social links, break down the barriers between living environments and reveal the different layers of history that urban space and the contents of interest to a variety of communities harbor.

Her work has been presented in Europe (Nantes, Paris, Brussels) and North America (Montreal, Laval, Quebec City, Gaspésie, Pittsburgh, New York, Baltimore). Also a cultural worker*, she notably developed the Slow Tech posture of the feminist artist-run center Ada X, where she was-from 2017 to 2022-coordinator of programming and the HTMlles festival. She lives and works in Montréal/Tio'tia:ke.

Caroline Barber

The literature of Oulipo, the cut-up words of Dada and the exquisite corpses of Surrealism are Caroline Barber's favorite playgrounds. These literary devices place words at the heart of her creative practice. Words serve as vehicles of the imagination, graphic images and echoes in the material, just as they do in her work as an everyday empoetineuse.

She has been offering literary workshops in Montreal schools and libraries for over ten years, and participates in the Blue Metropolis Children's Festival and Fenêtres qui parlent. Her fifth children's album, Le vol, has just been published by Les 400 coups.

Photo credit :
Yves Harnois
 

Stéphanie Morissette

For each of her projects, Stéphanie Morissette creates a narrative environment. She explores or revisits a theme from different perspectives. Her work focuses on human behavior throughout history and on conflicts related to the use of technology in both our daily lives and the geopolitical sphere. The artist is also interested in the impact of technology on nature and the psychology of the various actors who use it. Formally, her installations consist of paper, motors, drawings, photos, animations, and videos. This hybrid approach seeks to transcend the mediums themselves. The introduction of volume and movement into her two-dimensional works gives her work a serial and sequential aspect that is reminiscent of cinema and comic books. Her aesthetic—which seems naive at first glance but is tinged with black humor—allows her to tackle disturbing subjects. Stéphanie Morissette lives and works in Sherbrooke. In 2017, she won the Conseil des arts du Québec Award for Work of the Year in the Estrie region for her exhibition L’inquiète forêt.Her paper and video works have been presented in Germany, England, Belgium, Canada, China, Spain, the United States, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Syria, Taiwan, and Turkey at major events such as Les Rencontres Traverse Vidéo in Toulouse (2019), Les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois (2018), the International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA) in Hong Kong (2016), the Women Make Waves Film and Video Festival in Taiwan (2011), and the 10th Istanbul International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2007). Stéphanie Morissette has been involved with several arts organizations and festivals over the past 20 years.

Photo credit :
Patrick Simard
 

Paolo Almario

Paolo Almario is a digital artist of Colombian origin based in Chicoutimi since 2011. He began his career in 2014 with projects related to the impact Colombia's conflict had on his family. The repercussions of his artistic engagement led him to seek the protection of the Canadian Government, where he has had refugee status since 2015.

He trained at the Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño of Universidad Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia). In 2014, he completed a Master of Arts at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC). His work has been supported on several occasions by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2018, he was awarded the Prix du CALQ - Créateur de l'année in Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean. His work has been exhibited in Canada, Colombia, Italy, Belgium and France.

In his practice, Paolo Almario uses digital technologies to collect, analyze, codify, process and transform samples of reality into a plurality of artistic forms. Focusing on installation, software and electro-mechanical art, he explores the relationship between the individual and space, focusing on notions of identity, spatio-temporality and socio-politics.

Leila Zelli

Born in Tehran (Iran), Leila Zelli lives and works in Montreal. With a master's degree (2020) and a bachelor's degree (2016) in visual and media arts from UQAM, she is interested in our relationship with ideas of "others" and "elsewhere", and more specifically within the geopolitical space often referred to by the debatable term "Middle East". His work has been shown at Galerie Pierre-François Ouellette (2021), Galerie Bradley Ertaskiran (2020), Conseil des arts de Montréal (2019-2020), Galerie de l'UQAM (2020,2019, 2015) and Foire en art actuel de Québec (2019), among others. Her work is now part of the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. She is the 2021 recipient of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art.

Bleu diode is the multimedia artist duo formed by Isabelle Gagné and Sven in the continuity of Mouvement Art Mobile (MAM). Bleu diode conceives devices that integrate the art of remix as an element of disruptive intrusion, where the human factor acts as an unforeseen algorithm in an increasingly automated environment.

Jean-Yves Fréchette

Jean-Yves Fréchette lives in Quebec City and joined the performance art scene in the early '80s. A member of the Inter/Le Lieu collective, he has participated in major artistic projects including Territoires nomades. Founder of the Centrale textuelle de Saint-Ubald, he has produced Physitexte (publishing performance), Agrotexte (textual Land Art), Le lieu-dit le lieu (technical writing textual maneuver) and Le party textuel (collective writing maneuver-network). He co-founded the Institut de twittérature comparée de Québec-Bordeaux and designed educational software, including LogiTexte, Scriptor and Twittexte.
Isabelle Gagné is a multimedia artist who lives and works in Mirabel. In her practice, she mainly uses the photographic gesture and various digital languages. In Canada and abroad, her work has been the subject of major solo and group exhibitions, notably as part of the Mois de la Photo de Montréal (Momenta), at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie, at Sporobole as part of Espace [IM] Média and at the Canada Research Chair in Digital Arts and Literatures, as well as at ADA-X with Les Courants. She has carried out several artist residencies, written essays for art and photography publications, and her work is included in several private collections and in the MCCQ's policy of integrating the arts into architecture. She is actively involved in the cultural, arts and digital communities, including as Wikimedian-in-Residence for the Laurentides, Lanaudière and Laval regions. A pioneer of mobile art, she was also co-founder of the Mouvement d'art Mobile (MAM).

Photo credit :
Luc Girouard
 

Stefan Buridans, aka Sven, is a multimedia artist who has been living and working in Montreal since 2007. A graduate in cinematography (ESEC, Paris), he is particularly interested in the visual imprint left on our collective memory. His research in digital art is the fruit of professional experience in audiovisual media, and invites the viewer to traverse the indefinite space between perception and interpretation of an image. Co-founder and active member of Mouvement Art Mobile (MAM), Sven initiates events in public and digital spaces. He also works with institutions and universities to promote and recognize the contemporary notion of mobility in art. His first solo work, Plongeons, a device incorporating augmented reality, is currently touring Quebec's art centers and maisons de la culture.

Photo credit :
Michael Slobodian
 

Quatuor Bozzini

Quatuor Bozzini has been an original voice and strong advocate in new, experimental and classical music since 1999. Driving the hyper-creative Montréal scene and beyond, the quartet cultivates an ethos of risk-taking, experimentation, and collaboration, venturing boldly off the beaten track. With a rigorous eye for quality, they have nurtured a rich and diverse repertoire, regardless of trends. This has led to over 400 commissioned pieces, and some 500 premiered works. Their open, collaborative, artist-led approach has resulted in the realisation of numerous innovative and highly-praised productions, including inter-disciplinary projects with video, theatre and dance.

Photo credit :
Rico Michel
 

Thierry Dimanche

Trained in philosophy and literature, Thierry Dimanche has written several books of poetry since 2002. By turns critic, literary director and teacher, he's involving in various hybrid literary events, often in a musical context. In 2008-2010, he took part in the VSUP (Veuillez signaler un poème) project, a collaboration between five writers and five contemporary composers. He appears on the sound poetry compilations VQQV and Des monstres dans la gorge (Actuelle CD), and been part of the poetry-metal collective POMME (2012-2014). In 2015, his book Le milieu de partout (ed. Prise de parole) was awarded the Prix Champlain. With composer Robert Lemay, he worked on Deux mille mètres sous terre, including a recording made in Sudbury's underground particle observatory. In 2019, he published the mycological novel Cercles de feu (ed. le Quartanier), followed in 2022 by a paradoxical posthumous autobiography entitled Tombeau de Claude Gauvreau (ed. Leméac).

Sandrine Cadieux

Sandrine Cadieux holds a B.A. and a D.E.S.S. in arts, creation and technology from Université de Montréal, and divides her time between the arts and education. She is interested in the mediums of photography, 3D modelling/printing and video games. She is a 3D modeller with pixels·collectif, a photographer working with musicians, and a specialised facilitator for extracurricular activities and libraries, with the aim of making these practices accessible to a wide range of audiences.

Frédérique Bordeleau

With a BA in Communications, Frédérique Bordeleau has been passionate about programming ever since she studied for a DESS in Arts, Creation and Technology at Université de Montréal. She then embarked on a web development bootcamp at Lighthouse Labs to make it her career. Since then, she has divided her time between her work at Cirque du soleil and her passions: programming video games for pixels·collectif, cinema, sport and technological art.

Andrée-Anne Mercier

A multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal, Andrée-Anne Mercier holds a B.A. in visual and media arts from UQÀM and a D.E.S.S. in arts, creation and technology from Université de Montréal. Her artistic practice explores various modes of expression, ranging from painting to video games, installations, 3D modelling and animation. In recent years, she has undertaken several international artist residencies in Japan, Spain and Iceland. Represented by Galerie Robertson Arès in Montréal, she recently presented her work at the Foire Plural (Montréal) and Art Toronto (Toronto).

Photo credit :
Jeux vidéos d’art
 

pixels·collectif

Formed in 2020, pixels·collectif joins the practices of Frédérique Bordeleau, Andrée-Anne Mercier and Sandrine Cadieux around a common desire to create artistic, engaging and accessible video games. Their mandate is to take up the video game medium, historically dominated by men and commercial interests, in order to present alternative narratives and promote the recognition of this medium in the visual arts milieu. In collaboration with the sound designer Guillaume Plourde, the collective presented an initial game, Sunrise, at the Perchée gallery in Montreal (2021), at the Art Urbain Montréal exhibition Mémoire de l’avenir (2022) and at the Art Souterrain exhibition Espaces Croisés (2022). Their new game, Brume, was launched at the Eisode gallery in Montreal (2023).