Opening, Saturday, November 10 - 3PM to 6PM

Family Saturdays: November 17 and December 15

In her sustained residency work, Virginie Laganière adopts an attitude akin to that of an anthropological artist, mindful of immersing herself in the material and emotional texture of the spaces she studies. She conducts field work in which architectural structures in need of redefinition reveal an abundance of current and future potentialities. Developed during a stay at Studio du Québec à Rome, Le Prisme furthers this endeavour by dwelling on the formal and ideological universe of the colonie marine, or Italian seaside colonies.

Leading Edge/ Trailing Edge

Opening, Saturday, November 10 - 3PM to 6PM

Family Saturdays: November 17 and December 15

Since the publication of J.J. Audubon’s Birds of America in 1838, bird populations have constantly decreased, for some to the point of extinction. They are now but paper memories and preserved bodies in natural history museums. Artist Geneviève Chevalier tracked one species that has acclimatized and adjusted remarkably well to climate change. The “fou de Bassan,” or Northern Gannet, chose to make its home on craggy cliffs of Bonaventure island, where its colony of 100,000 individuals faces some reproductive issues, and on Bass Rock, off the coast of Scotland, which has a more prosperous population. The Gannet succeeds where many other species have great difficulty enduring the impact of climate variations on food and water and air temperatures. Chevalier observed these specimens in their habitat and met with scholars in Quebec and Scotland. What she learned is reconstituted in a video diptych and artist book, the titles of which conjure a world of aeronautics.

Publication available at OPTICA

The Italian colonie marine—or seaside colonies, children’s summer camps set up along the Italian coasts—whose origins go back to the middle of the 19th century, were once established as institutions dedicated to children’s physical and “spiritual” health. These heterotopias functioned on the fringes of society, yet were configured as full-fledged instruments of control. Geographically positioned on the periphery of inhabited areas—before urban sprawl and the development of coastal tourism—they had their own regulations and value systems. The maritime cures took place during a summer vacation, in which the children, removed from the familial cocoon, would live in a geographic, social, and architectural environment framed by the horizon and set to a different temporality. From a historical point of view, the seaside colonies fall into three main periods: the seaside hospices, the Fascist colonies, and the pedagogical colonies.

Publication available at OPTICA

While filming and sound recording in Scotland (Ailsa Craig, Bass Rock, Isle of May, Outer Hebrides, Troup Head) during a residency at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, and in Eastern Quebec (Parc national de l’Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé, Parc national Forillon), I became interested in the North Sea and North Atlantic Seabirds. The video Leading Edge / Trailing Edge loosely evokes, through seascapes, portraits of birds and recent scientific data, the actual situation of boreal seabird species, in the era of climate change.

Public Conversation at OPTICA, Saturday, December 1st- 3 pm to 4:30 pm

Public conversation at OPTICA, Saturday December 1st, 3 pm to 4:30 pm between Geneviève Chevalier, *Bénédicte Ramade, art historian, Université de Montréal, and **Kyle Elliott, Assistant Professor; Canada Research Chair (Tier II) Chair in Arctic Ecology, McGill University.

Trekking with the Birds! Around the work of Geneviève Chevalier

Geneviève Chevalier’s Trailing Edge/ Leading Edge looks at how climate change threatens the survival of seabirds. In this collage workshop, we will look at different birds form North America and explore the theme of migration. Where do they go, where do they come from? We will create a collaborative artwork tracing different trajectories, from those of birds to our own.

NEW! Satellite project with the little ones at La Sourithèque

La Sourithèque day-care centre, Centre-Sud district
Spring 2019

This satellite project—off OPTICA’s premises—is jointly produced with artist Pavitra Wickramnasinghe. Children from the La Sourithèque will help create a collective kinetic work, a fantastical shadow play temporarily set up in their own environment. The project is an invitation to a journey, an encounter with the other, and aims to help kids discover their friends’ cultures.