Stanley Wany. Espaces imprévisibles

This virtual exhibition looks at the works executed by Françoise Sullivan during the 1970s, when she had discovered new art trends like conceptual art and arte povera. At that time, her work was rooted in photography, film, text and performative actions. An “imaginary line” is traced on a horizon that merges art, family, time and the world.

Galerie de l’UQAM is pleased to announce its participation in the 18th edition of MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, presented from September 7 to October 22, 2023. Designed by curator Ji-Yoon Han, Masquerades: Drawn to Metamorphosis aims to explore the dynamics of visibility and invisibility that shape representations of the self and the other from the metamorphic potentials of mimicry. As part of the 18th edition of MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, Galerie de l’UQAM will have the great pleasure to present the artists Marion Lessard (Canada), Émilie Pitoiset (France) and Naomi Rinćon Gallardo (Mexico).

How do different forms of normativity govern our bodies? How does imaginary somatic research allow us to approach the so-called alternative representations of the body? Le septième pétale d’une tulipe-monstre examines understandings of the body that challenge its normative contours. This three-part exhibition presents practices that make room for hybrid, ambiguous bodies, or that explore different possibilities through metamorphosis.

De la vie au lit is an encounter between the curator and six invited artists—living in Canada, USA, and England—based on the experience of being bedridden, having a “dysfunction,” or a desire to explore collective rest. In the exhibition, the bed and its bedside become spaces of transmission, the ultimate sharing of intergenerational trauma, and romantic or amicable moments of care. Going through the experience induces new relationships to the body and to choreographed gestures. The assemblage of different art mediums also responds to the capitalist injunction of hyper-productivity, which stigmatizes recumbent and/or intermittent bodies. For those who suffer from pain and fatigue or deal with mental health issues either temporarily, chronically, or permanently, a life in bed that is critically and creatively repositioned becomes a place of possible sharing and collective resistance.

Clara Painchaud takes a multidisciplinary approach to imagine the tentacular entanglements between different ecologies, combining performance, sculpture, and video to create narratives of possibilities inspired by deviant, mutant, and speculative ecologies. Using a queer perspective, they seek to complicate the nature/culture and living/non-living binaries through a porousness in which recycled materials, various temporalities, and fictive fabrications intersect. By means of installations, the fictions Painchaud tells occupy the space and become modular. The artist presents a protocol in which they shape chimerical forms, gather eclectic scraps, and exaggerate performative propositions. Ceramic sculptures, found objects, and chosen sites inspire performances, which are documented. The transformation and connection established between different documents allows the artist to present laboratories in which they develop tangible connections with the world.