Initially an immersive virtual reality work by artist Stéphanie Morissette, Méandres has been adapted to offer an online experience in the comfort of your own home. The experience takes you on a journey through the connections of the brain's white matter. You move through a mysterious universe. A labyrinth of fiber bundles envelops us like a forest to be explored. This environment is fragile, affected by our presence and behavior.
Inspired by Imeka’s ground breaking research on free water as a biomarker of neuroinflammation, on axonal loss and demyelination, Meanders takes us forward in a poetic manner through the aging of the brain.
The collaboration between artist Stéphanie Morissette and author Pattie O'Green resulted in the creation of 24 visual and poetic fragments, punctually unveiled on social networks and added to day by day in the web work, immersing us in the immersive, contemplative universe first created for virtual reality. This photographic, sound and poetic experience was created in collaboration with interactive designer Yannick Guéguen.
Created specifically for the web project, Pattie O'Green's poetry takes the point of view of light to reflect on its different roles in the work and in life. To light can mean to open up a space or, on the contrary, to enclose it. Illumination can help us see something better, but it can also blind us. By exploring this polysemy, the author's texts underline and question the place of light in Stéphanie Morissette's work, constantly redefined through experience.
The original project was born of collaboration with the brain imaging company Imeka, the center en art actuel Sporobole and TOPO, and was made possible thanks to financial support from CALQ and the City of Sherbrooke.
Photo credit :
Yves Harnois
Stéphanie Morissette
For each of her projects, Stéphanie Morissette creates a narrative environment. She tells or revisits a theme from different points of view. Her work focuses on human behavior throughout history, and on the conflicts linked to the use of technology in our daily lives and in the geopolitical sphere. The artist is also interested in the impact of technology on nature and the psychology of the various players who use it.
In terms of form, his installations are made up of paper, motors, drawings, photos, animations and videos. This hybrid approach seeks to transcend the mediums themselves. The introduction of volume and movement into his two-dimensional works lends his work a serial and sequential aspect that is akin to cinema and comics. His aesthetic - seemingly naïve at first glance, but tinged with dark humor - enables him to deal with troubling subjects.
In 2017, she received the CALQ Prize – Artwork of the Year – Estrie, for her exhibition L’inquiète forêt (Troubled Forest). She currently lives and works in Sherbrooke, Qc. Canada.
Her works, paper and videos, have been exhibited in galleries and festivals in England, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Spain, United States, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Syria, Taiwan and Turkey, in international events such as 22e Rencontres Traverse Video, Toulouse, France (2019); Les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois, Montreal (2018); the International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA), Hong Kong (2016); Women Make Waves Film and Video Festival, Taiwan (2011); and the 10th International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Istanbul (2007). During the last 20 years, Stéphanie has been involved in many art organizations and festivals in the province of Québec.
