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2024 - 2025

Programming

RÉSIDENCE INTERSECTIONS 2026 - Appel de candidatures
from August 25th 2025 to November 3rd 2025

MOMENTA BIENNALE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN
Commissaire | Curator: Marie-Ann Yemsi
from September 5th 2025 to October 18th 2025

MOMENTA BIENNALE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN
Commissaire | Curator: Marie-Ann Yemsi
from September 5th 2025 to October 18th 2025

Alvaro Marinho
from September 15th 2025 to September 15th 2025

Lou Sheppard, Paul Seesequasis
from September 26th 2025 to September 26th 2025

Offre d’emploi / Job Offer
from September 30th 2025 to October 27th 2025

from November 1st 2025 to September 12th 2026

Alvaro
from November 4th 2025 to December 13th 2025

Po B. K. Lomami
from November 4th 2025 to December 13th 2025

Lucile Beaudouin
from November 21st 2025 to November 21st 2025

Po B. K. Lomami
from November 29th 2025 to November 29th 2025

Alvaro
from December 13th 2025 to December 13th 2025

Aïda Vosoughi
from January 12th 2026 to November 2nd 2026

Elizabeth Chitty, Marie Décary, Johanna Householder, Kamissa Ma Koïta, Francine Larivée, Lise Nantel, Bé van der Heide
Commissaire/Curator : Didier Morelli
from January 16th 2026 to June 13th 2026

Atelier de médiation à OPTICA
from January 16th 2026 to June 13th 2026

Nuit Blanche 2026 à Montréal_28 février_19h-22h
Helena Martin Franco
3 ateliers sur réservation : 19h, 20h et 21h
3 workshops on reservation: 7 pm, 8 pm and 9 pm
from February 28th 2026 to February 28th 2026

Autour de l'exposition éponyme / Around the eponym exhibition
Commissaire | Curator : Didier Morelli
from May 7th 2026 to May 7th 2026

Offre d’emploi / Job Offer
from August 6th 2026 to September 28th 2026

Claudia Goulet-Blais
from September 11th 2026 to October 24th 2026

Anne-Marie Proulx, Sara A. Tremblay
from September 11th 2026 to October 24th 2026

	RÉSIDENCE INTERSECTIONS 2026 - Appel de candidatures from August 25th 2025 to November 3rd 2025 NEW DEADLINE: November 21, 2025 Résidence Intersections 2026 Period: January 7 to April 30, 2026 Deadline: November 21, 2025 Le Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM), le Centre d’art contemporain OPTICA et l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques (EAVM) de l’UQAM lancent un appel de candidatures pour les artistes issu.e.s de l’immigration (de première ou de seconde génération) qui sont membres des minorités ethniques ou visibles. Les candidat.e.s éligibles sont diplômé.e.s de la maîtrise à l’EAVM. Ce partenariat vise à offrir un soutien de recherche, de création et de production à un.e artiste en lui donnant accès à un accompagnement professionnel, complémentaire à sa formation universitaire dans le milieu artistique montréalais. Ce projet prend la forme d’une résidence en vue de la réalisation d’une œuvre qui entre en dialogue avec des archives (fonds documentaire du centre d’art contemporain OPTICA ou autre, en fonction de la recherche de l’artiste). À la fin de la résidence, OPTICA présentera une exposition de l’artiste sélectionné.e. Le lauréat ou la lauréate tiendra aussi une présentation publique sur sa pratique artistique au centre. Un accompagnement par l’EAVM et OPTICA sera fourni dans le cadre du projet d’une durée d’un an. Conditions d’admissibilité – être un.e artiste issu.e. de l’immigration (de première ou de seconde génération) membre des minorités ethniques ou visibles; – être un.e artiste professionnel.le en arts visuels; – être diplômé.e du programme de maîtrise à l’EAVM; – être citoyen.ne canadien.ne ou résident.e permanent.e du Canada à la date de dépôt de la demande; – être domicilié.e sur le territoire de l’île de Montréal depuis au moins un an; – être disponible pour toutes les activités incluses dans le cadre du projet. Soutien offert – trois mois de résidence de recherche à l’hiver 2026 (janvier – mars) au centre d’art contemporain OPTICA incluant un espace de travail et un accès aux équipements de bureau, aux archives et à la documentation; – un studio pour la création et la production, ainsi qu’un accès aux ateliers techniques spécialisés de l’EAVM, « sous toute réserve» en raison des travaux en cours ou pour d’autres impondérables à l’UQAM, pour une durée de 8 mois; – un accompagnement professionnel totalisant 60 heures par OPTICA (30h) et l’EAVM (30h); – des frais de recherche conditionnel aux disponibilités financières et en collaboration avec La Faculté des arts de l’UQAM (max. 1 500 $); – un cachet de production (4,375$), d’exposition (2,475$) et de présentation publique (125$); – une plage d’exposition ou de diffusion du projet final dans la programmation d’OPTICA et une présentation publique au cours de l’année 2026. Veuillez noter que nous ne prenons pas en charge les frais d’hébergement ou de transport. Le calendrier et les conditions de travail peuvent être modifiés en fonction des disponibilités financières des partenaires. Dossier de candidature – une lettre de motivation décrivant le projet de recherche proposé, les objectifs prévus, l’échéancier pour les trois mois de la résidence et sa pertinence pour la démarche artistique (max. 400 mots); – une démarche artistique (max. 500 mots); – un curriculum vitae (max. 3 pages); – 10 images maximum au format JPG d’un poids maximal de 1Mo par image et/ou extraits vidéo et audio (5 minutes maximum, par hyperliens) avec une liste descriptive des images et/ou des extraits audiovisuels; Le dossier de candidature doit être soumis dans un seul document PDF (taille maximale du fichier de 15 Mo) et envoyé au plus tard le 21 novembre 2025 à minuit à l’adresse courriel: intersections@uqam.ca Seuls les documents exigés seront transmis aux membres du comité d’évaluation. Il n’y aura pas de commentaires du jury. Pour plus de renseignements, vous êtes invité.e à participer à la séance d’information virtuelle qui aura lieu le mercredi 24 septembre à 10h via ce lien ZOOM: https://uqam.zoom.us/j/82546397978 Pour plus d’information sur les termes utilisés, consulter le Glossaire du Conseil des arts de Montréal: https://www.artsmontreal.org/glossaire/
Lou Sheppard, Rights of Passage, 2022. Vidéo à 3 canaux, couleur, 60 min. © Lou Sheppard. Avec l’aimable permission de l'artiste. \| Three-channel video, colour, 60 min. © Lou Sheppard. Courtesy of the artist.	MOMENTA BIENNALE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN Commissaire \| Curator: Marie-Ann Yemsi from September 5th 2025 to October 18th 2025 MOMENTA x OPTICA \| In Praise of the Missing Image; Lou Sheppard, Rights of Passage Opening: Friday, September 5, 2025 - 5PM to 10pm September 5, 2025 Performance of Lou Sheppard, Pamela Hart and members of Riparian Chorus Rights of Passage (St. Lawrence Watershed) 5:30 pm, Champ des possible, meeting point: corner Avenue de Gaspé and Allée St-Viateur. Cancel event in case of rain. OPTICA is proud to participate in the 19th edition of MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain, titled In Praise of the Missing Image, organized by the guest curator Marie-Ann Yemsi. OPTICA will present solo exhibitions by the artists Paul Seesequasis and Lou Sheppard. Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, from September 5 to October 18, 2025, Paul Seesequasis and Lou Sheppard will present solo exhibitions at OPTICA; these artists’ works invite us to imagine, together, political and poetic ways to inhabit the impasses of the present by sketching out paths to the future. In a world saturated with images, some, strangely, are lacking. This edition of MOMENTA aims to open up multiple perspectives for experimentation and speculation on the nature, uses, and production of missing images. In Praise of the Missing Image explores both contemporary challenges in relation to the image and the current consequences of the complex dynamics involved in constructing narratives. Which stories are told, how, and by whom? MOMENTA x OPTICA Rights of Passage is a drag opera presented as an immersive sound and video installation. Lou Sheppard stages Hogweed, Turkeytail, and Algae, three hybrid figures wandering through the lost, buried, or compromised waterways of Greater Toronto. The exhibition, which also includes sculptural elements inspired by plants and fungi from the St. Lawrence River, explores the right of access to riverbanks, now impeded by privatization. Through a script composed by artificial intelligence and edited by Sheppard, the work orchestrates points of queer emergence, where unclear boundaries between city and nature, past and future, access and intrusion allow us to imagine other paths toward common ground. MOMENTA Creative The Biennale includes the MOMENTA Creative program, which comprises a series of education activities, creative workshops, and guided tours for groups, families, and individuals. Each activity is free of charge and related to the Biennale’s theme. Designed with a concern for inclusion and representation, the activities convey our desire to provide innovative cultural mediation. The workshop Between City and Nature is built around Lou Sheppard’s practice and will be hosted by the MOMENTA Creative team and OPTICA in collaboration with Le Champ des Possibles. The general public can participate in this activity, hosted at OPTICA, on September 26 at 3 p.m. and October 18 at 1 p.m. Early childhood centers, school groups, and community groups can participate throughout the biennial, Tuesday through Friday. All workshop participation requires a reservation. The workshop Ka'nikonhri:io: Good Mind, Good Body is built around Paul Seesaquasis’s practice and will be hosted by the MOMENTA Creative team and OPTICA in collaboration with Le Champ des Possibles. The general public can participate in this activity, hosted at OPTICA, on September 26 at 12 p.m. and October 18 at 3 p.m. School and community groups can participate throughout the biennial, from Wednesday to Friday. All workshop participation requires a reservation. PRESS RELEASE (pdf) Lou Sheppard works in interdisciplinary audio, performance and installation based practices. His work focuses on climate crisis, loss, queer bodies and ecologies, responding to the material and discursive histories of sites, bodies and environments. He is committed to questioning and disrupting systems of power, by deconstructing the language, architectures, genealogies and taxonomies that hold these systems in place. Through unruly research methods he looks for what isn’t present, what is in between, what isn’t said, and use processes of metaphor, semiotic shift, translation, and negative-space readings to evoke these in between - out of bounds spaces. Sheppard has performed and exhibited across Canada, notably at the GoldFarb (The Art Gallery of York University, Toronto), The Confederation Centre for the Arts (Charlottetown), and at Plug In Institute Of Contemporary Art (Winnipeg), and as part of the first Toronto Biennial, as well as internationally, at Kumu Kunstimuuseum (Estonia), in the Antarctic Biennial, and at Titanik Gallery (Finland). The artist has participated in numerous residencies, including the International Studio Curatorial Program in Brooklyn (New York), at La Cité des Arts (Paris), and as participant and faculty at The Banff Centre. He has been longlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2018, 2020 and 2021, and was the winner of the Emerging Atlantic Artist Award in 2017. Lou is a settler on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia. Marie-Ann Yemsi is a curator and contemporary art consultant who has been director of the Villa Arson art centre in Nice, France, since September 2024. With a degree in political science, Yemsi pays particular attention to theoretical, critical, and aesthetic productions in the Global South and develops multidisciplinary art programs at the intersection of the visual arts, performance, dance, music, and writing. Her projects focus on collaborative art practices and experimental forms, highlighting themes such as memory, history, gender, and identity in relation to contemporary political, social, and ecological issues. She has organized numerous international exhibitions including, most recently, the group exhibition Ubuntu, a Lucid Dream, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and Grada Kilomba’s A World of Illusions, at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa. She was a recipient of the Villa Albertine, a prestigious French program of residencies in the United States, in 2025, and in 2026 she will present an exhibition and a publication resulting from her research and work with contemporary artists in the archives of The Afro, one of the oldest and most important African American newspapers, conserved in Baltimore. About MOMENTA MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain is a flagship Montreal event that, every two years, invites artists and audiences to gather in the city’s museums, galleries, and artist-run centres. For 35 years, it has produced exhibitions, public events, and educational workshops that introduce participants to local and international artists whose works pique curiosity and stimulate reflection.
Wishe Ononsanorai, Michael Deerhouse, joueur de crosse, Montréal (Québec), 1876. Épreuve à l’albumine, 17,8 × 12,7 cm. Photo: William Notman Studio. Reproduit par Paul Seesequasis pour l’Indigenous Archival Photo Project. Numéro d’accession II-41669.1, division Photographie – Archives photographiques Notman, collection McCord, Musée McCord Stewart.	MOMENTA BIENNALE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN Commissaire \| Curator: Marie-Ann Yemsi from September 5th 2025 to October 18th 2025 MOMENTA x OPTICA \| In Praise of the Missing Image; Paul Seesequasis, Indigenous Archival Photo Project : Framing the Creator’s Game Opening: Friday, September 5, 2025 - 5PM to 10pm OPTICA is proud to participate in the 19th edition of MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain, titled In Praise of the Missing Image, organized by the guest curator Marie-Ann Yemsi. OPTICA will present solo exhibitions by the artists Paul Seesequasis and Lou Sheppard. Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, from September 5 to October 18, 2025, Paul Seesequasis and Lou Sheppard will present solo exhibitions at OPTICA; these artists’ works invite us to imagine, together, political and poetic ways to inhabit the impasses of the present by sketching out paths to the future. In a world saturated with images, some, strangely, are lacking. This edition of MOMENTA aims to open up multiple perspectives for experimentation and speculation on the nature, uses, and production of missing images. In Praise of the Missing Image explores both contemporary challenges in relation to the image and the current consequences of the complex dynamics involved in constructing narratives. Which stories are told, how, and by whom? MOMENTA x OPTICA The Indigenous Archival Photo Project is Paul Seesequasis’s critical rereading of Canadian photographic archives, aimed at restoring to Indigenous communities the narration of their own histories. Framing the Creator’s Game is a new iteration of the project that focuses on lacrosse, a sport that is sacred for the Haudenosaunee. Historical photographs and contemporary images come together in an installation that reactivates collective memory. By revealing narratives absent from official history, Seesequasis invites us to reconsider the role of archives in transmitting Indigenous cultures and in shaping reconciliation dynamics. MOMENTA Creative The Biennale includes the MOMENTA Creative program, which comprises a series of education activities, creative workshops, and guided tours for groups, families, and individuals. Each activity is free of charge and related to the Biennale’s theme. Designed with a concern for inclusion and representation, the activities convey our desire to provide innovative cultural mediation. The workshop Ka'nikonhri:io: Good Mind, Good Body is built around Paul Seesaquasis’s practice and will be hosted by the MOMENTA Creative team and OPTICA in collaboration with Le Champ des Possibles. The general public can participate in this activity, hosted at OPTICA, on September 26 at 12 p.m. and October 18 at 3 p.m. School and community groups can participate throughout the biennial, from Wednesday to Friday. All workshop participation requires a reservation. The workshop Between City and Nature is built around Lou Sheppard’s practice and will be hosted by the MOMENTA Creative team and OPTICA in collaboration with Le Champ des Possibles. The general public can participate in this activity, hosted at OPTICA, on September 26 at 3 p.m. and October 18 at 1 p.m. Early childhood centers, school groups, and community groups can participate throughout the biennial, Tuesday through Friday. All workshop participation requires a reservation. PRESS RELEASE (pdf) PRESS REVIEW DELGADO, Jérôme. « Autres voix, autres récits, autres musiques à la biennale Momenta», Le Devoir, October 4, 2025. Campeau, Sylvain. "Éloges de l’image manquante MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain, Montréal", paru dans Ciel variable, web, «Plantes et jardins», Montréal, Automne et hiver 2025. Paul Seesequasis (Willow Cree), a member of the Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation, is a curator and writer residing in Saskatoon (Saskatchewan). Since the early 1990s, he has been working on issues relating to the decolonization of dominant historical narratives. He collects archival images of everyday life among First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities from the 1920s through the 1970s, from an external - colonial - gaze that has contributed to the erasure of these communities as living, dynamic cultures. By sharing these images on social media and collecting information from Indigenous communities, Paul identifies the people, places, events and stories connected to each image, these details have often been left out of gallery, museum, and archive records. He is the author of the award-winning book "Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun" published by Knopf (2019) and "People of the Watershed: Photographs by John Macfie" published by Figure 1 and McMichael Canadian Art Collection (2024). His curated exhibitions include People of the Watershed at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, May–November, 2024, and then touring; selected as “one of the 10 best things about visual arts in 2024” by The Globe and Mail. Marie-Ann Yemsi is a curator and contemporary art consultant who has been director of the Villa Arson art centre in Nice, France, since September 2024. With a degree in political science, Yemsi pays particular attention to theoretical, critical, and aesthetic productions in the Global South and develops multidisciplinary art programs at the intersection of the visual arts, performance, dance, music, and writing. Her projects focus on collaborative art practices and experimental forms, highlighting themes such as memory, history, gender, and identity in relation to contemporary political, social, and ecological issues. She has organized numerous international exhibitions including, most recently, the group exhibition Ubuntu, a Lucid Dream, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and Grada Kilomba’s A World of Illusions, at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa. She was a recipient of the Villa Albertine, a prestigious French program of residencies in the United States, in 2025, and in 2026 she will present an exhibition and a publication resulting from her research and work with contemporary artists in the archives of The Afro, one of the oldest and most important African American newspapers, conserved in Baltimore. MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain is a flagship Montreal event that, every two years, invites artists and audiences to gather in the city’s museums, galleries, and artist-run centres. For 35 years, it has produced exhibitions, public events, and educational workshops that introduce participants to local and international artists whose works pique curiosity and stimulate reflection.
Alvaro Marinho, Sans titre, 2025, sérigraphie. Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. \| serigraphy. Courtesy of the artist.	Alvaro Marinho from September 15th 2025 to September 15th 2025 CONVERSATION WITH ALVARO MARINHO, LAUREAT OF THE RÉSIDENCE INTERSECTIONS 2024 CONVERSATION WITH ALVARO MARINHO, LAUREAT OF the RÉSIDENCE INTERSECTIONS 2024 LUNDI 15 SEPTEMBRE 2024, 12H45 À 13H45 UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL PAVILLON JUDITH-JASMIN, LOCAL J-7130 (SITUÉ AU 7E ÉTAGE) 405, RUE SAINTE-CATHERINE EST (ANGLE ST-DENIS) H2L 2C4 Take note that the conversation will take place in French Alvaro Marinho explore les enjeux de l’appropriation et du détournement d’images à travers les techniques de l’impression. Par un travail hybride entre sérigraphie, pochoir et estampe, il interroge les récits dominants, les identités et les circulations culturelles. Designer, artiste en arts visuels et vidéaste d’origine brésilienne, Alvaro a obtenu une maîtrise en arts visuels et médiatiques à l’UQAM en 2023. Il s’intéresse entre autres à l’appropriation et au détournement d’images en art imprimé, à travers l’hybridation des techniques de la sérigraphie, de la peinture au pochoir et de l’estampe. www.alvaroartist.ca Au cours de cette conversation, il fera part de sa démarche artistique et de la recherche qu’il a réalisée pendant sa résidence au centre OPTICA. Il s’entretiendra aussi sur sa production effectuée dans les ateliers de l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM. La discussion sera animée par Bahar Majdzadeh, professeure à l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM, et Marie-Josée Lafortune, directrice du Centre d’art contemporain OPTICA. Une période de questions suivra sa présentation avec le public. PROGRAMME DE RÉSIDENCE ARTISTIQUE INTERSECTIONS La résidence Intersections de recherche, de création et de diffusion récompense des artistes http://xn--mergent-9xa.es/, issu.e.s de l’immigration (de première ou de seconde génération), qui sont membres des minorités ethniques ou visibles et diplômé.e.s de la maîtrise à l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM. Ce programme vise à offrir un soutien aux artistes de la diversité en leur donnant accès à un accompagnement professionnel, complémentaire à leur formation universitaire dans le milieu artistique montréalais Pour de plus amples informations, consulter : https://intersections.uqam.ca La résidence Intersections est une initiative conjointe du Conseil des arts de Montréal, du Centre d’art contemporain OPTICA et de l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM.
	Lou Sheppard, Paul Seesequasis from September 26th 2025 to September 26th 2025 September 26: Journées de la culture at OPTICA During the Journée de la culture day, OPTICA, in collaboration with MOMENTA Creative, is pleased to invite the public to discover its current exhibitions and take part in stimulating workshops. In conjunction with the exhibition Indigenous Archival Photo Project: Framing the Creator's Game by artist Paul Seesequasis, the Ka'nikonhri:io: Good Mind, Good Body workshop offers a relaxed guided meditation that teaches participants about sportsmanship, teamwork, and how to face every challenge with the Haudenousaunee concept of "Ka'nikonhri:io: a good mind." The Between City and Nature workshop is linked to Lou Sheppard's exhibition, Rights of Passage. It is an exploratory outing that invites participants to imagine the rights of liminal spaces between the city and nature, as if these spaces were living beings. The public will be able to explore the links between ecology, territory, and queer identity by participating in the creation of a collective hybrid installation made from found objects. The gallery will be open as usual on September 26 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. for continuous visits (no reservation required). The Ka'nikonhri:io: Good Mind, Good Body workshop will take place from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., and Between City and Nature will take place from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. (reservation required). Here is the link to reserve your spot. All our activities are free! To schedule a guided tour and/or to take part in a workshop, simply book an appointment from September with the Public Education Program Coordinator: mediationoptica@gmail.com or call us at 514-874-1666. Accessibility OPTICA pays particular attention to providing everyone an optimal and successful visit. With a constant desire to improve matters of inclusion and accessibility, the Centre steers its efforts toward responding in the best possible way to the challenges posed by contemporary issues. OPTICA is committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment. The head of the educational program received a training on accessibility in artist centres from the RCAAQ and Kéroul. In addition, remember that there is no cost to exhibition tours or to participation in creative workshops. An access ramp is located at the north-side entrance, at 5455, avenue de Gaspé. If you have any questions or have specific needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Atelier éducatif avec le duo Leisure \| Educational workshop with the duet Leisure. Photo: Michael Patten.	Offre d’emploi / Job Offer from September 30th 2025 to October 27th 2025 OPTICA Public Education Program Coordinator Deadline for application: October 27 OPTICA, A Centre for Contemporary Art, is seeking a dynamic individual to fill the position of public education program coordinator. The candidate must have 2-3 years of experience in cultural mediation or have acquired complementary experience as part of his or her studies and have a good knowledge of the education sector and the contemporary art world. The tasks are involved with the development of pedagogical content and resources in contemporary art, audience reception, the preparation and facilitation of visits, discussions, and creative workshops, research activities in cultural mediation, and the production of special projects. About OPTICA Located in Tiohtia:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, OPTICA is among the first artist-run centres in Canada. Since 1972, the Centre has worked to promote Canadian contemporary art and to raise awareness of the issues that inform artistic practices and discourse in the visual arts through a varied program of exhibitions, publications, residencies and critical and educational activities. ► Position: Permanent employment contract ► Working schedule  : 4 days, or 28 hours per week, Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (flexibility on Mondays to be determined with the selected candidate) ► Salary: $24,73 per hour, $36 000$ annual ► Start date: November 11, 2025 ► Job Interview: from November 3 to 7 2025 ► Place of work: OPTICA, 5445 Av. de Gaspé, local 106, Montréal, QC H2T 3B2 DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: OCTOBER 27, 2025 at 11:59 pm VIEW THE JOB OFFER IN PDF FORMAT
Programme éducatif public \| saison 2025-26. Public Education Program \| Season 2025-26 Design: Pastille rose	from November 1st 2025 to September 12th 2026 Public Education Program \| Fall - Spring 2025-2026 OPTICA’s public education program proposes various creative workshops and interactive tours for audiences of all ages, from 4 and up. Daycare centres, public and private, elementary schools, high schools, colleges, universities, retirement homes and community organizations can all participate in our activities. These ones place in an atmosphere conducive to discussion and reflection, in order to learn more about current creative production. All our activities are free! To schedule a guided tour and/or to take part in a workshop, simply book an appointment with the Public Education Program Coordinator Lucile Beaudoin: mediationoptica @ gmail.com or call us at 514-874-1666. CONSULT OUR 2025-2026 ANNUAL PROGRAM IN PDF FORMAT
Alvaro, Sans titre, 2025, sérigraphie. Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. \| screen printing. Courtesy of the artist.	Alvaro from November 4th 2025 to December 13th 2025 *Opening November 1st, 2025, from 3 to 5 PM. Artist Talk: December 13th, 2025, 3 pm to 4 pm During his research-creation in the Intersections residency program, Alvaro focused on the practices of immigrant artists who used the process of their integration as creative material. Consulting the archives at OPTICA, this choice led him to incorporate another temporal framework—namely, the sixteen-year period that had elapsed since his arrival in Canada—and to engage in a dialogue between institutional and personal archives. Two approaches uncovered in his research were particularly inspiring: the first is that of Fragment-s de silence I* (2020–2022), by Iranian-born artist Maryam Eizadifard, whose work illustrates the complexity of the relationship between an adopted host environment and one’s country of origin, with the landscape conveying tensions connected with identity and exile. The second is The Novels of Elsgüer (Episode 4): Camouflaged Screams (2021), by Laura Acosta and Santiago Tavera, Columbian-Canadian artists based in Montreal. Their work enlists camouflage as metaphor for cultural and social integration, examining the visibility and invisibility of minorities. Camouflage here becomes a critical tool for reflecting on how immigrant bodies are seen or made invisible. Coming back to his personal archives, Alvaro found several photographic portraits in 2 x 3-inch format, initially produced for official documents. Following institutional specifications, these photographs take up the traditional canons of Western portraiture—frontal view, closely framed to the head, neck, and shoulders, absence of accessories—while incorporating contemporary features such as the white background, which detaches identity from context. Although their artistic use had not been planned for, they established themselves as a way of exploring identity through Alvaro’s fours different faces. Another element incorporated into this research were the city plans of the Montreal neighbourhoods in which he had lived, built with GPS technologies representing the artist’s presence in the city. By bringing together and juxtaposing his institutional portraits and the rigidity of maps, Alvaro explored how urban organization transforms the image of the face, and how, in turn, organic traits modify one’s perception of spaces. The articulation between identity and territory thus becomes central, revealing the reciprocity between individuals and their environment. On a technical level, the creative process is marked by two orientations: the first concerns a relationship to nature in which snow and sand symbolize the host country and home country, respectively, and where the act of walking gains significance as the body’s sensory discovery of the territory. The second concerns colour, broached in an experimental manner: rather than using predetermined hues, colour is built directly on the print canvas or on paper in a process receptive to the unexpected. The use of “poor” and “prestige” paper allows for reexamining the codes of art printing, while the alternation between institutional exhibition spaces and “wild” street postering interrogates the circulation and reception of images: some images were created for outdoor display and were mounted without authorization in the neighbourhood of the gallery at the same time as the exhibition. Alvaro Traductor: Ron Ross The Intersections residency is joint initiative of the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Centre d’art contemporain OPTICA and l’École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM. PRESS RELEASE (pdf) Alvaro is a visual artist, designer, and video-maker who has been living and working in Montreal for sixteen years. Originally from Brazil, he explores visual arts as a space for critical research of the printed image. In his practice, he addresses colonial and personal archives as raw material for composing new images that interrogate the temporality of visual representations. His approach is marked by a decolonizing and queer stance and the appropriation and subversion of source images. The artist is particularly interested in the implications of reactivating archives and in the transformation of perception through printing techniques. His hybrid approach combines screen-printing, stencils, and engraving to question prevailing narratives, fixed identities, and cultural circulation. Alvaro obtained an MFA in visual and media arts from UQAM in 2023 and his research is focused on the transformation of collective imagination tied to colonial symbols. www.alvaroartist.ca.
Po B. K. Lomani, Nothing 01 (Small Talk), 2023-... Vidéo interactive en temps réel et son stéréo, traitement des données en temps réel. \| Real-time, interactive video and stereo sound, real-time data processing. Nothing 02 (_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _), 2023. Vidéo interactive en temps réel et son stéréo, sauvegarde des données, ~ 11 ans. Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. \| Courtesy of the artist.	Po B. K. Lomami from November 4th 2025 to December 13th 2025 *Screensavers* Public conversations at OPTICA In collaboration with the Dark Opacities Lab Saturday November 29th, 2025 - 3 to 4 pm - Po B. K. Lomami and Somayeh Rashvand 4:30 to 5:30 pm - Po B. K. Lomami and RÉSEAU MAYELE Screensavers presents two works from Po B. K. Lomami’s ongoing Nothing series, Nothing 01 (Small Talk) and Nothing 02 (_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _), part of their larger project Body of Nothing: Silence, Avoidance, Compartmentalization. The works emerge from Lomami’s long-standing engagement with the entangled histories of genocide and colonial mineral extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the core of Lomami’s practice lies the question of representation in the face of these ongoing histories, and the search for alternative modes of engaging with them. What do we see when we look at these histories? Nothing. Yet for Lomami, “nothing” is not emptiness but what emerges where archives fail—in the unrecorded, the unnamed, and the uncounted. In what official archives register as blank or missing, Lomami locates an affective presence charged with traces of life, endurance, and refusal. “Nothing,” far from a recurring motif or overarching theme, thus becomes a defiant method: a way of attending to, staying with, and witnessing history through opacity. Nothing 01 (Small Talk) begins from the impossibility of accounting for catastrophe, and yet the insistent urge to do so. There are no precise records(data) of the many lives lost during the genocide in Congo, nor of the vast quantities of minerals plundered from its soil. Against this backdrop, and in an ironic gesture, Lomami turns to the weather. After all, who does not want to have a small talk about the weather? In Nothing 01, meteorological data is transformed into an amorphous, ever-shifting audio-visual composition that evokes how catastrophe is reduced to abstract data, to numbers without form. By introducing noise into the flow of meteorological data, Lomami creates an unstable space, making palpable the difficulty of witnessing what has been rendered invisible, suggesting that what survives of violence is often diffuse, ungraspable, suspended—just as the weather itself. If Nothing 01 stages the disembodiment of catastrophe, Nothing 02 (_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _), reclaims the body as a site of endurance and witness. On screen, we see a close-up of a human face covered in soil or mineral dust that begins to recite numbers aloud, each spoken as if it were a name. The face, veiled in dust, recalls the colonial mineral extraction in Congo, revealing the entanglements of human disappearance with the earth’s depletion. The counting continues as long as a viewer (witness) is present and, if uninterrupted, would last for years. In doing so, Lomami confronts us with the impossibility of accounting for catastrophe and the burden of witnessing it. Nothing 02 (_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _), reclaims what data anonymizes, transforming the very act of counting from measurement into mourning, care, and remembrance. Lomami’s Screensavers unfolds at the threshold between visibility and opacity, presence and disappearance, offering a slower, more attentive encounter with the histories of genocide and colonial resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These works create affective and embodied encounters in which viewers are invited to engage with these histories through forms that resist representation and transparency. In an era obsessed with data consumption and quantification, Lomami’s politics of opacity becomes an act of epistemic disobedience—a way of knowing otherwise that unsettles the very regimes of visibility through which catastrophe becomes legible. Author: Somayeh Rashvand PRESS RELEASE (pdf) Po B. K. Lomami is an indisciplinary artist-researcher, teacher, and community organizer. They are a Congodescendant from Belgium currently based in Tiohtià:ke-Mooniyang-Montreal since 2017. Exploring rage and failure, Lomami’s art practice revolves around the displacement of work, the becoming of their subjectivity, and the possible collective futures with black, crip, and Afrofeminist perspectives. They question people, institutions, and themself through affection, force, absurd, and the everyday. Lomami holds a bachelor’s degree (2011) and a master’s degree (2014) in Business Engineering from the University of Namur, a Graduate Diploma in Communication Studies from Concordia University (2022), and an MFA degree in Studio Arts - Intermedia from Concordia University (2025). However, their interventionist practice hasn't been developed within an institutional educational context. Somayeh Rashvand is an art writer and interdisciplinary scholar currently pursuing her PhD in Art History at Concordia University in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal.
Portrait de Lucile Beaudouin. Crédits photo : Melina Vera-Jaramillo	Lucile Beaudouin from November 21st 2025 to November 21st 2025 Welcome to à Lucile Beaudouin OPTICA is pleased to welcome Lucile Beaudouin who will be joining our team as Public Education Program Coordinator. A visual artist, cultural mediator, and teacher, she has worked in arts education and project coordination in Canada, France, and Panama. A graduate of Concordia University's Fine Arts program, she has also studied science and education. Her career includes participation in juries, educational curating, and mentoring guest artists. She has presented lectures and led discussions on creative dynamics and collaborative work. She positions herself as a resource person, eager to open spaces where art fosters encounters.
Po B. K. Lomami, Screensavers, vue d'exposition. Crédit photo : Paul Litherland	Po B. K. Lomami from November 29th 2025 to November 29th 2025 Public Conversation - around the exhibition Screensavers Part of the exhibition of Po B.K. Lomani Screensavers, OPTICA host a public conversations  in collaboration with the Dark Opacities Lab  Saturday, November 29th, 2025 _3pm to 4pm - Po B. K. Lomami and Somayeh Rashvand _4:30pm to 5:30pm - Po B. K. Lomami and RÉSEAU MAYELE Please note that translations into French and English will be available. The exhibition Screensavers presents two works from Po B. K. Lomami’s ongoing Nothing series, Nothing 01 (Small Talk) and Nothing 02 (_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _), part of their larger project Body of Nothing: Silence, Avoidance, Compartmentalization. The works emerge from Lomami’s long-standing engagement with the entangled histories of genocide and colonial mineral extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. First, Somayeh Rashvand opens a dialogue with Po B. K. Lomani about aesthetic issues and how the works in the exhibition mobilize silence, opacity, and memory. Following that, RÉSEAU MAYLE launches an essential discussion with Po about our disconnection from the violence in the DRC—our tendency to look away when atrocities overwhelm us. Together, they invite the audience to look differently: to see through the opacity, confront discomfort, and relearn how to be witnesses. Somayeh Rashvand is an art historian, craftswoman, and interdisciplinary scholar currently pursuing her doctoral studies in Art History at Concordia University. Her research is broadly concerned with art, aesthetics, planetary crises, and questions of social and ecological justice. She is especially interested in the ways in which the aesthetic realm becomes a site of queer, defiant, and insurgent knowledge production, sensibility, and speculative world-making to encounter the dystopian moment marked by imperial wars, resource extraction, climate change, and ecological destruction. Her work draws on decolonial and anti-extractive methodologies rooted in ancestral and Indigenous practices of listening, sensing, and storytelling—approaches through which she thinks with, listens to, and imagines alongside artists and their aesthetic practices. Before beginning her PhD at Concordia, she was a university lecturer in Iran for more than a decade, where she taught a wide range of courses on theories and methods in art history. Her writing has been published in Art Journal and PUBLIC, among others. Dark Opacities Lab is subtitled “a hub for BIPOC political and aesthetic study and strategy” as a means to signal this work as centering the work of people of color and to our political commitments as they precede the aesthetic. It is in this centering of the political that we must understand that a commitment to the work of racial justice comes out of politics, emerges from not only the consciousness of the general antagonism, but has already picked a side. It is in this way that the lab approaches politics as ethics, the choosing of sides, the work of radical consciousness that requires forms of study and organizing not always available at the school, at the university. Perhaps evident, this structural logic borrows from an anti-colonial politics and ethics that is, too, informed by the writing of Moten and Harney’s The Undercommons. The RÉSEAU MAYELE is a non-profit organization that aspires to mobilize Congolese-Canadian youth around a patriotism rooted in community engagement and sustainable change in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The organization is composed of an activist diaspora that questions and acts on behalf of the Congo. Their mission is to raise awareness about the current situation in the Congo, equip young people to face the realities of the job market, encourage critical thinking and reflection, and promote Congolese culture through writing, the arts, and history. Their ambition is to bring together the youth of the Congolese diaspora in Canada and awaken a sense of responsibility in the face of the challenges facing their community. The RÉSEAU MAYELE is a space for dialogue, education, and mobilization—for a conscious youth that thrives from coast to coast. For a diaspora that questions, understands, and acts for Congo. Collective intelligence starts now.
Alvaro, Sans titre, 2025, sérigraphie. Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. \| screen printing. Courtesy of the artist.	Alvaro from December 13th 2025 to December 13th 2025 Public Conversation - around the exhibition De sable et de neige Public conversation at OPTICA This Saturday, December 13, 2025, 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Meet Alvaro part of his exhibition De sable et de neige. The artist will share the results of his research and present a personal documentary essay he has directed, providing an overview of the Intersections Residency at OPTICA in partnership with Conseil des arts de Montréal, and the École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l'UQAM. Alvaro is a visual artist, designer, and video-maker who has been living and working in Montreal for sixteen years. Originally from Brazil, he explores visual arts as a space for critical research of the printed image. In his practice, he addresses colonial and personal archives as raw material for composing new images that interrogate the temporality of visual representations. His approach is marked by a decolonizing and queer stance and the appropriation and subversion of source images. The artist is particularly interested in the implications of reactivating archives and in the transformation of perception through printing techniques. His hybrid approach combines screen-printing, stencils, and engraving to question prevailing narratives, fixed identities, and cultural circulation. Alvaro obtained an MFA in visual and media arts from UQAM in 2023 and his research is focused on the transformation of collective imagination tied to colonial symbols. www.alvaroartist.ca.
Crédit photo : Andrea Calderón	Aïda Vosoughi from January 12th 2026 to November 2nd 2026 Aïda Vosoughi, laureate of the 2026 Intersections residency The Conseil des arts de Montréal, OPTICA, centre d’art contemporain and the École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM are pleased to announce that Iranian-born Canadian artist Aïda Vosoughi is the laureate of the 2026 Intersections residency. This residency offers professional support to the artist from the partners, in addition to a production grant and access to technical workshops and specialized resources at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM. At the end of the residency, the artist presents the results of his or her research in an exhibition at the OPTICA. Originally from Iran, Aïda Vosoughi has been based in Montreal since 2014. Her artistic practice consists of long-term projects at the intersection of contemporary art and the humanities. Inspired by literature, mythology, and the pictorial tradition of the region now recognized as the Middle East, Vosoughi has developed a metaphorical language that became central to her practice. The artist has been exploring the notion of landscape and its profound transformations from a historical perspective, linking it to issues such as economics and the environment, and adopting a decolonial approach. Her current research focuses on the border as an agent of landscape transformation, particularly through its dynamics linked to migratory movements and with a focus on its geopolitical dimension. As part of the Intersections residency, Aïda Vosoughi plans to adopt an experimental approach that is specific to the materiality of each project she undertakes. https://aidavosoughi.com/ The Intersections residency is a joint initiative of the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Centre d’art contemporain OPTICA, and the École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l'UQAM. It is intended for artists from a cultural community who have graduated with a master's degree from the École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l’UQAM.
Bé van der Heide, Pisces Pedic Pleasure Palace, 1978. Exposition et performance. Avec l'aimable permission des Collections spéciales et archives de l'Université Concordia, le fonds La Centrale. \| Exhibition and performance. Image courtesy of Concordia University Special Collections and Archives, La Centrale Fonds.	Elizabeth Chitty, Marie Décary, Johanna Householder, Kamissa Ma Koïta, Francine Larivée, Lise Nantel, Bé van der Heide Commissaire/Curator : Didier Morelli from January 16th 2026 to June 13th 2026 *Street Actions : Women Performing in Montréal and Toronto (1970-1980)* Commented Visit by Didier Morelli Saturday, April 11, 3-4 pm Symposium around the exhibition - May 7, 2026 4TH SPACE, Concordia university 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West 10:30 am - 5:45 pm When artist Rita Letendre was interviewed on Radio-Canada about her practice as a muralist, having completed monumental works on buildings in California (Sun Rise, 1965) and Toronto (Sunrise, 1971), her street actions rather than the works themselves became the focus of the conversation: Letendre: For an outdoor mural, like the one I did in California in ’65 — that one, I did myself. It was twenty-one by twenty-four feet; I could control it. The other one was done by men who translated it, because it was sixty by sixty feet and two hundred feet above the ground…. Andréanne Lafond: Scaffolding for a woman, wow, you had to climb twenty-one feet; you did that yourself? Letendre, it seemed, was not expected to perform physical actions outside of the norms established by society. Street Actions: Women Performing in Montreal and Toronto (1970-1980) looks at how women in the 1970s laid claim to cities through a variety of performances and performatively informed gestures and actions. Resisting urban functionalism and the gender-based rationale of public and private spaces, they imagined alternate modes of embodiment in Montreal and Toronto. At both ends of the cultural spectrum, linguistically divided yet united by other causes, these artists shaped second-wave feminist discourse and activism or moved in parallel to it with their overt gestures. At the apex of the Canadian women’s movement, Street Actions explores how issues like representation, reproductive rights, gender-based violence, and environmentalism contributed to and was amplified by artists performatively inhabiting the margins of the city. In all the works on display—fragments of a pavilion built to expose women’s condition, movement-based performances, colourful banners carried in feminist street protests, or playful pillow-like feet appended to public art. Artists across disciplines generated a kinaesthetic vocabulary that diverged from social codes, established modes of artistic production, utilitarian models of urban thinking, and gendered spatial-identities. This exhibition features original artworks, documentation, and archives from seven artists, a fragment of a larger ongoing research project that includes many more. It also relies on supporting visual material from feminist organizations and the women’s movement as it was articulated through various pamphlets, journals, and the broader media ecosystem that captured women challenging societal norms with their bodies. In addition, it draws attention to how women were vilified by caricatures, newspapers, and other sources. Kamissa Ma Koïta’s contemporary restaging of an iconic image from the founding of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, a seminal feminist artist-run-centre created in the mid 1970s, seeks to expand this archive and connect it to the present moment. Mostly white, the women placing themselves on public display in Street Actions do not reflect the important presence of Black, Indigenous, and non-white women organizers which helped shape protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Koïta, intentionally anachronistic and also working within these lineages, reminds us that artists continue to use the street as a political place to engage with issues of agency, rights, and representation, creating friction against the architecture of the cities that contain them. Didier Morelli would like to thank the artists who made Street Actions possible, as well as the many contributing institutions that lent works, documents, and other exhibition materials. This project has received support from the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQSC), Concordia University Press, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). Material support was also provided by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery and the CCA. OPTICA would like to thank Rian Adamian, Gregory Prescott et Natacha Chamko from Atelier Clark for the creation of platforms in the exhibition. PRESS RELEASE (pdf) PRESS REVIEWS DELGADO, Jérôme. «'Actions de rue': performer pour militer », Le Devoir, March 14, 2026. Mention Radio show Pénélope, "L’art et le sport Florence-Agathe Dubé-Didier Morelli," ICI Première, Radio-Canada, radio, March 26, 2026. Host: Pénélope McQuade. Link MAVRIKAKIS, Nicolas. « Que découvrir dans les centres et galeries d’art cet hiver?», Le Devoir, January 10, 2026. BOUCHARD, Karine. « Les débuts de 2026 en arts visuels», La Presse, January 10, 2026. Didier Morelli is a curator, performance and art historian, cultural critic and visual artist. His Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture (FRQSC) Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022-2025), which he held at Concordia University and the CCA, examines how second-wave feminist performances subverted urban functionalism by imagining alternate modes of embodiment in Montréal and Toronto during the 1970s. Previously the associate editor at Espace art actuel, his writing has also been published in Art Journal, CTR: Canadian Theatre Review, C Magazine, CBC Arts, Esse Arts + Opinions, RACAR, Spirale et TDR: The Drama Review. Morelli was the curator of the 2026 MANIF, the Quebec City Biennial, which is titled “Briser la glace / Splitting Ice.” Elizabeth Chitty made artwork from 1975 to 2021 in Toronto, Vancouver and the Niagara region at the intersection of performance, video, sound, photography, dance, and community-based strategies for the gallery, stage and public realm. Her primary material was movement—of digital images, sound and the human body. Her final work was Power, a 15-minute three-video-channel and four-audio-channel installation addressing ecological remediation and decolonization through the Niagara River, the Treaty of Niagara, and three women walking. A versatile artist with a degree in communications, Marie Décary has shaped a career that combines craftsmanship and textile arts—notably, in collaboration with Lise Nantel—, documentary film and experimental video, cultural journalism, and children’s books. Whether through writing, sewing, or filming, having her say remains important. She enjoys sharing ideas, images, and feminist-informed stories that bring about change. Johanna Householder immigrated to Canada from the U.S. in 1975, and was one of many independent choreographers/dance artists who were nurtured at 15 Dance Lab in Toronto. As a member of the feminist performance ensemble, The Clichettes, she helped establish lip-sync as a viable medium for political critique. Her interest in how ideas shape bodies has led her often collaborative practice in performance art, video and choreography. Kamissa Ma Koïta is a Canadian-Malian visual artist and designer based in Montréal. Her transdisciplinary practice draws on West African archives, technologies, and knowledge, and unfolds through performance, image, poetry, and visual arts. She is particularly interested in vectors of social domination and historically marginalized groups, from a pan-African and decolonial perspective. She has presented her work at Dare-Dare (2018), Galerie de l’UQAM (2018) and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2021). She also contributed to the co-creation and visual design of Survival Technologies, presented at the Festival TransAmériques in 2024. Francine Larivée was born in Montréal, where she lives and works. A graduate of the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, she holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and a master’s degree in art studies from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her sculptural practice has had a major impact on the arts in Québec, beginning with the installation La chambre nuptiale (1976), which challenged all the clichés about women’s identity. In the 1980s, in a spirit just as socially and politically engaged, she worked with “living” natural materials, notably installing Mousses en situation (1983) in the lobby of Place Ville Marie. Lise Nantel draws on everyday material to integrate knowledge related to housework, horticulture, ethnology, and art in her work. Her practice is an act of resistance, deeply rooted in a desire to identify obstacles to creativity, taboos, and the search for a language that expresses both what has been denied in history and the numerous layers of memory. Her desire to diversify the fields of artistic intervention has inspired her to create and disseminate often ephemeral works: research and publications on popular art, production of visual elements for political events, creation of spaces for meditation, co-founding of Éditions du remue-ménage, and teaching, among others. Bé van der Heide was born in the Netherlands where she went to art school, attending a four-year course in painting. Moving to Canada in 1960, she executed a large mural in the Dutch pavilion at Expo 67 during the world exhibition in Montreal.
Marie Décary, Lise Nantel, Les chevalières des temps modernes, 1980 Bannière, textile, jute, rubans, festons, plastique, bois 175 x 133 x 7 cm, 227 x 133 x 7 cm (avec sa base) Don de Marie Décary et de Lise Nantel Collection Musée de la civilisation, Québec 2000.134 Avec l’aimable permission des artistes	Atelier de médiation à OPTICA from January 16th 2026 to June 13th 2026 OPTICA invites the public to reactivate feminist memories in public spaces At OPTICA, we believe that contemporary art must be experienced, touched, and discussed. Our cultural mediation program creates spaces for engagement between you, the artworks, and the artists, whether you’re a student, a senior, a curious visitor, or an art enthusiast. Workshops for general public As part of the exhibition Street Actions: Women in Performance in Montréal and Toronto (1970-1980), OPTICA's educational program is organizing participatory workshops open to the general public by reservation that extend the questions raised by feminist performances of the 1970s: how do bodies inhabit public space? How can collective creation become an act of resistance? The workshop Nos corps, nos rues: mémoires féministes de Montréal [Our Bodies, Our Streets: Feminist Memories of Montréal] invites participants to reactivate their memories. Through a guided tour of the exhibition followed by a circle of testimonials, participants will collectively create a textile banner inspired by the works of Marie Décary and Lise Nantel. This workshop transforms oral memory into a living, material archive. This event continues OPTICA's commitment to making contemporary art accessible and participatory by inviting audiences to become co-creators of meaning. Active Tours Tours that focus on dialogue and the shared construction of meaning. We take the time to observe, ask questions, and make connections. Every voice counts; every interpretation enriches the encounter with the artwork. Workshops for young children Contemporary Labs. for 4- to 5-year-olds: “Little Knights and Ladies of the City” workshop Because young children understand with their whole bodies, we offer them a space where they discover contemporary art through movement, the senses, and hands-on exploration. We don’t simplify art; we approach it differently. This workshop uses the creation of a puppet to introduce the concepts of feminism and performance art. School Groups: “Our Modern Knights” Workshop Customized programs for elementary and high school students, developed according to the group’s level and objectives. Students explore feminist practices and create collaborative character banners. They actively engage with contemporary art through observation, inquiry, and creative activity. Action Research Project: “My Visit, My Perspective” (Longueuil) A long-term cultural mediation project designed for French-language immersion classes, combining French language development, arts education, and cultural citizenship to help students develop their perspective as visitors. FREE / Reservation Workshop by reservation. If you have any questions or have specific needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Charlotte Noël: mediationoptica @ gmail.com or 514-874-1666. Accessibility OPTICA pays particular attention to providing everyone an optimal and successful visit. With a constant desire to improve matters of inclusion and accessibility, the Centre steers its efforts toward responding in the best possible way to the challenges posed by contemporary issues. OPTICA is committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment. An access ramp is located at the north-side entrance, at 5455, avenue de Gaspé. If you have any questions or have specific needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Crédit photo : kimura byol lemoine	Nuit Blanche 2026 à Montréal_28 février_19h-22h Helena Martin Franco 3 ateliers sur réservation : 19h, 20h et 21h 3 workshops on reservation: 7 pm, 8 pm and 9 pm from February 28th 2026 to February 28th 2026 Reservations requiry throught this email : mediationoptica @ gmail.com On the occasion of the Nuit Blanche 2026, OPTICA is delighted to open its doors to the general public and offer an evening of artistic discovery and creativity in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. The center welcomes multidisciplinary artist Helena Martin Franco to lead workshops. Through movement games and simple gestures, participants will explore the political dimension of the body in urban space, then translate their reflections into visual creations (drawing, collage, models). Three workshops will be offered at the following times: 7 p.m., 8 p.m., and 9 p.m. The exhibition Street Actions : Women Performing in Montréal and Toronto, 1970-1980 will be open to the public! Helena Martin Franco was born in Cartagena. She lives and works in Tio'tia: ke-Mooniyang-Montréal since 1998. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the blending of different artistic processes and the hybridization between traditional and new technologies. Helena creates autofictions in which she explores the permeability and boundaries between cultural, national, and gender identities. Her artistic practice invites dialogue about gender-based violence, immigration and artistic censorship. From a feminist perspective, she builds relationships between collectives and cultural organizations to promote encounters and exchanges of artistic practices, particularly between Canada and Colombia. She is a member of several feminist contemporary art collectives, including L’Araignée (founder, collective of diffusion of contemporary art), La Redhada (network of women artists from the Colombian Caribbean), CAVCA (Community of Visual Artists of Cartagena and Bolivar) and Las meninas emputás! (Feminist collective, anti-colonial activist from Cartagena). Winner of the Powerhouse Prize in 2018, she holds an MA in visual and media arts from UQAM. Her projects have been presented in the Dominican Republic, Spain, New Zealand, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, and Canada, among others.
Marie Décary, Lise Nantel, Les chevalières des temps modernes, 1980 Bannière: textile, jute, rubans, festons, plastique, bois 175 x 133 x 7 cm, 227 x 133 x 7 cm Archives Marie Décary et Lise Nantel. Avec l'aimable permission des artistes.	Autour de l'exposition éponyme / Around the eponym exhibition Commissaire \| Curator : Didier Morelli from May 7th 2026 to May 7th 2026 STREET ACTIONS: WOMEN PERFORMING IN MONTREAL AND TORONTO (1970 - 1980) SYMPOSIUM May 7, 2026, 10:30 am – 5:45 pm 4th Space, Concordia University J.W. McConnell Building 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West Room LB-103 Montreal, H3G 1M8 Guy-Concordia Metro Station Free entrance Live streaming availble Join online by registering for the Zoom meeting at this LINK or on Youtube Download the program in PDF format. This one-day symposium builds on the key elements of the exhibition Street Actions: Women Performing in Montreal and Toronto (1970-1980). This includes moving geographically between Toronto and Montréal, as well as linguistically across French and English ; focusing on the importance of dance, movement, and the kinesthetic in shaping experimental practices of the 1970s; looking at questions of changing feminisms as they evolved in public and cultural spaces; and attesting to historical and current practices by artists infiltrating outdoor and institutional sites with their bodies. By bringing together different generations of artists, curators, and cultural workers, this day of conversation and exchanges aims to acknowledge and record the past while making room for new and intersectional conversations. Didier Morelli SCHEDULE 10:30 Opening Welcome 10:40 Experimental Performance and Dance in Toronto, the 1970s Moderated by Marie Claire Forté with Elizabeth Chitty, Johanna Householder In English 1:15 pm Art and Feminism in Québec, from the 1970s to today Moderated by Analays Álvarez Hernández with Rose Marie Arbour,Marie Décary, Lise Nantel, Women with Kitchen Appliances In French 3:00 pm Infiltration based art practices, Furtive Actions Moderated by Po B. K. Lomami with Kama La Mackerel, Kamissa Ma Koïta, Map In English and in French 5:45 pm Closure OPTICA would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, as well as the artists and partner institutions involved in the exhibition Street Actions de rue : femmes en performance à Montréal et à Toronto (1970 – 1980), and 4TH SPACE and the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art as partners in the symposium. Analays Álvarez Hernández is an Associate Professor of Art History at the Université de Montréal. Her research interests include public art, diasporic arts and practices, and alternative exhibition venues. She is the author of Climbing Aboard: Havana Apartment-Galleries and International Art Circuits(2023) and co-editor of the volume Diffracting the North: Contemporary Latinx Canadian Experiences and Practices in Film, New Media, and Visual Arts (2025). As an independent curator, Álvarez Hernández has organized exhibitions in Toronto and Montreal, including The Recipe: Making Latin American Art in Canada and On Americanity and Other Experiences of Belonging. Rose Marie Arbour an art historian, was a professor at UQAM from 1969 to 1999. Part of her research and teaching focused on the contribution of women artists to modernity in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. She was the guest curator of the exhibition Art and Feminism (1982) at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Elizabeth Chitty made artwork from 1975 to 2021 in Toronto, Vancouver and the Niagara region at the intersection of performance, video, sound, photography, dance, and community-based strategies for the gallery, stage and public realm. Her primary material was movement—of digital images, sound and the human body. Her final work was Power, a 15-minute three-video-channel and four-audio-channel installation addressing ecological remediation and decolonization through the Niagara River, the Treaty of Niagara, and three women walking. A versatile artist with a degree in communications, Marie Décary has shaped a career that combines craftsmanship and textile arts—notably, in collaboration with Lise Nantel—, documentary film and experimental video, cultural journalism, and children’s books. Whether through writing, sewing, or filming, having her say remains important. She enjoys sharing ideas, images, and feminist-informed stories that bring about change. Marie Claire Forté is compelled by the relational, experimental and joyous potential of dance. Friendship is one of her artistic bents. Based in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang, she dances, choreographs, translates, writes, teaches and supports. Her child is a clarifying force. Her career has been nourished by long-term collaborations with artists from different generations and aesthetics, sharing a love of process, rigour and exploration. She creates art—in choreography, language, video and sound—and works with artists she respects. She is currently working on a book with Peter Boneham on his teaching practice. Johanna Householder immigrated to Canada from the U.S. in 1975, and was one of many independent choreographers/dance artists who were nurtured at 15 Dance Lab in Toronto. As a member of the feminist performance ensemble, The Clichettes, she helped establish lip-sync as a viable medium for political critique. Her interest in how ideas shape bodies has led her often collaborative practice in performance art, video and choreography. Kamissa Ma Koïta is a Canadian-Malian visual artist and designer based in Montréal. Her transdisciplinary practice draws on West African archives, technologies, and knowledge, and unfolds through performance, image, poetry, and visual arts. She is particularly interested in vectors of social domination and historically marginalized groups, from a pan-African and decolonial perspective. She has presented her work at Dare-Dare (2018), Galerie de l’UQAM (2018) and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2021). She also contributed to the co-creation and visual design of Survival Technologies, presented at the Festival TransAmériques in 2024. Kama La Mackerel is a multilingual writer, visual artist, performer, educator, literary translator, and ritualist whose work is rooted in a deep commitment to love, justice, and collective empowerment. Drawing on research into insularity, oceanic memory, trans poetics, créolité, and decolonial ecologies, her interdisciplinary practice reconfigures dominant artistic structures, creating space for decolonial and queer/trans vocabularies to emerge where they have historically been erased or silenced. By crossing and reshaping forms, she engages interstitial spaces as fertile ground for community-building, resistance, and healing. Her work has been presented in galleries, theatres, and universities across Canada and internationally. She is the author of Indrazaal et la quête de l’océan (Éditions KATA, 2023) and ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press, 2020). Originally from Mauritius, she lived in Pune, India, and Peterborough, Canada, before settling in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal in 2012. Po B. K. Lomami is an indisciplinary artist-researcher, teacher, and community organizer. They are a Congodescendant from Belgium currently based in Tiohtià:ke-Mooniyang-Montréal since 2017. Exploring rage and failure, Lomami’s art practice revolves around the displacement of work, the becoming of their subjectivity, and the possible collective futures with black, crip, and Afrofeminist perspectives. They question people, institutions, and themself through affection, force, absurd, and the everyday. Lomami holds a bachelor’s degree (2011) and a master’s degree (2014) in Business Engineering from the University of Namur, a Graduate Diploma in Communication Studies from Concordia University (2022), and an MFA degree in Studio Arts - Intermedia from Concordia University (2025). However, their interventionist practice hasn't been developed within an institutional educational context. Map is an artist-researcher and founder of DC-Art Indisciplinaire, an artist-run center dedicated to deaf and disabled art. They holds a master’s degree with honors in research-creation (UdeM). They complete training in Québec Sign Language-French interpretation, with a view to rethinking the functions of the art world. Their work has been presented in Tiohtiàke, Wôbanakiak, Nitassinan, Tkaronto and Szczecin. Performative in nature, their practice of creating situations transforms the state of (im)material environments through an arrangement of particular moves, where their movements are their materials as they engages them in the strangeness of their own neuroqueer processes. Lise Nantel draws on everyday material to integrate knowledge related to housework, horticulture, ethnology, and art in her work. Her practice is an act of resistance, deeply rooted in a desire to identify obstacles to creativity, taboos, and the search for a language that expresses both what has been denied in history and the numerous layers of memory. Her desire to diversify the fields of artistic intervention has inspired her to create and disseminate often ephemeral works: research and publications on popular art, production of visual elements for political events, creation of spaces for meditation, co-founding of Éditions du remue-ménage, and teaching, among others. Women With Kitchen Appliances (WWKA) are three, four, five, or six… Interchangeable. Disposable. And deadly serious. They are a performance collective, a band, a cacophony, a cabaret show, a recipe, a synchronized routine for rubber gloves, a barbecue chicken washer, a Christmas jingle for confectionery flour, and a kitchen certification service. Since its inception in 1999, more than fifty anonymous feminist artists have participated in the WWKA collective project. They have performed on stages and on lawns, under a big top, on the radio, on TV, in lofts, lounges, galleries, grocery stores, white cubes and black cubes, bars, festivals, theaters, and in people’s homes, in their kitchens. Didier Morelli is a curator, performance and art historian, cultural critic and visual artist. His Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture (FRQSC) Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022-2025), which he held at Concordia University and the CCA, examines how second-wave feminist performances subverted urban functionalism by imagining alternate modes of embodiment in Montréal and Toronto during the 1970s. Previously the associate editor at Espace art actuel, his writing has also been published in Art Journal, CTR: Canadian Theatre Review, C Magazine, CBC Arts, Esse Arts + Opinions, RACAR, Spirale et TDR: The Drama Review. Morelli was the curator of the 2026 MANIF, the Quebec City Biennial, which is titled “Briser la glace / Splitting Ice.”
Richard Max-Tremblay	Offre d’emploi / Job Offer from August 6th 2026 to September 28th 2026 Head of Communications, Outreach Development, and Archives Deadline for applications: September 28, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Start of employment: October 13, 2026 Job Call, pdf version Centre d’art contemporain OPTICA is seeking a motivated individual for the position of Head of Communications, Outreach Development, and Archives. The successful candidate must have 3 to 5 years’ experience managing communications in a cultural organization or artist centre or have gained relevant experience through their studies and possess a good understanding of the current art scene. About OPTICA Located in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, OPTICA was among the first artist-run centres in Canada. The centre has promoted Canadian art since its inception in 1972, seeking to raise public awareness about the issues driving discourses and art practices in the visual arts through a varied program of exhibitions, publications, residencies, and critical and educational activities. Responsibilities Job description: Answering to the executive director, this individual will carry out the following duties: • In charge of gallery hosting; • Draw up a communications plan and implement strategies for outreach development that include under-represented groups; • Promote the centre’s activities in the newsletter, on the OPTICA website, on social networks, and among college and university communities and under-represented groups; • Manage media relations; • Optimize OPTICA’s online presence on social networks (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Linktree); • Manage advertising placements; • Assist in writing and submitting grant reports and applications; • Coordinate calls for proposals in the program; • Take part in centre activities: openings, launches, and participation is such public events as the Journées de la culture and Nuit blanche à Montréal. Archives and publications • Manage and organize the repositories of the OPTICA Archives, housed at Concordia University Records Management & Archives; • Supervise internships • Coordinate the process of digitizing OPTICA publications; • Ensure the distribution of the centre’s publications, including magazines on consignment for sale at OPTICA; • In charge of writing and monitoring copyright and reproduction license agreements. Ideal candidate profile • Have a university degree in a relevant discipline: communications studies, art history, visual arts; • Three to five years’ experience in communications management for a cultural organization or artist centre; • Knowledge of contemporary art and of its main systems of dissemination in Québec and Canada; • Ability to have a general view of contemporary art communications strategies; • Ability to plan and organize while adapting to changing contexts, and to work both on their own and in a team; • Show initiative and versatility; • Ability to maintain positive and supportive relationships; • Excellent communication, writing, and public speaking skills; • Ability to work in a Mac environment and familiarity with applications: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel), the Adobe suite (Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat), social networking platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.); • Attention to detail, methodology, discipline; • Excellent fluency in French and knowledge of English, both written and oral. Conditions of employment: • Permanent position • Open work contract • 4 days, or 28 hours, per week, Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. • Salary: $27.31 per hour, $39,000 annually • Start of employment: October 13, 2026. Benefits: • 2 weeks paid leave during the Holiday season • 4 weeks paid vacation per year Place of work OPTICA, centre d’art contemporain 5445 avenue de Gaspé, local 106, Montréal, Québec H2T 3B2 514 874-1666 www.optica.ca On-site work, pleasant environment, a lively team, good work-life balance, and a venue known both locally and nationally for its contemporary art productions. Interested candidates are kindly requested to submit their curriculum vitae, together with a covering letter, no later than September 28, 2026, 23:59 p.m., to the attention of Marie-Josée Lafortune, executive director: mjlafortune@optica.ca. Please include the title of the position in the subject line of your email: Head of Communications, Outreach Development, and Archives We extend our warmest thanks in advance to all those who apply. However, we will communicate only with those selected for an interview. We place great value on cultural diversity and encourage candidates to mention if they are of an immigrant or Indigenous background or members of a visible minority.
Claudia Goulet-Blais, Untitled IV de la série Entre tes mains (In Your Hands), impression jet d’encre, 2026. Avec l’aimable permission de l'artiste.	Claudia Goulet-Blais from September 11th 2026 to October 24th 2026 Entre tes mains (In Your Hands) Claudia Goulet-Blais’s photographic practice is inextricably linked to her family environment, from which she explores the mother-daughter relationship, particularly the interplay of aging, memory, and caring for a loved one. The concept of care runs through her new series of photographs, Entre tes mains (In Your Hands), and portrays this relationship in various performative forms. In another series, she explores family history, memories, and the construction of identity through found archival photographs that she juxtaposes, documenting the intimate moments and physical gestures that form part of a universal language.
Anne-Marie Proulx et Sara A.Tremblay, images tirées du projet Fleurs coupées, 2026. Avec l’aimable permission des artistes.	Anne-Marie Proulx, Sara A. Tremblay from September 11th 2026 to October 24th 2026 *Fleurs coupées* The photographic practices of Anne-Marie Proulx and Sara A. Tremblay are deeply rooted in their living environment and their choice to live in the countryside. Their collaborative project, titled Fleurs coupées, is grounded in the ecosystem of the garden and the living world. This ever-changing space allows them to address existential questions such as wounds and the trials we face in life, and to explore different forms of friendship and sisterhood—both between themselves and with the garden. The photographs create a journey through the dualities that exist in their collaboration, which are accentuated by the juxtaposition of sister images.