On the occasion of the start of the school year, the Galerie de l’UQAM presents the collective exhibition False folds by assumptionscurated by Louise Déry, Director of the Gallery, and graduate Marie-Hélène Leblanc (Ph.D. Arts Studies and Practices, 2024), Director of the UQO Gallery, at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. This project, supported by the Chief Scientist of Quebec, Rémi Quirion, highlights the unique role of university galleries and offers a reflection on the relationship between art and science.
The 13 bodies of work selected by the curators are displayed in five exhibition and research spaces in Quebec: the Galerie de l’UQAM, the Galerie UQO, the Galerie l’Œuvre de l’Autre, at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, the Galerie d’art Foreman, at Bishop’s University, and the Jardins de Métis.
False folds by assumptions reports on the commitment of university galleries to explore issues that mobilize the artistic field and many of which echo problems linked to questions of languages, identities, territories, structures and institutions, often shared by several sectors of scientific research (pure and social sciences).
For Louise Déry and Marie-Hélène Leblanc, the university gallery is a place where, at the crossroads of artistic and scientific knowledge, bold initiatives shatter preconceived ideas and give rise to new forms and positions of research. The Galerie de l’UQAM and the Galerie UQO participate in this disciplinary decompartmentalization by inviting artists and exhibiting works that offer fruitful connections with scientific content.
The concept of creases
The project is based on the notion of false folds, considered here as biases sometimes imposed, acquired or transmitted. These false folds, present in the university context, infiltrate research and creation. How to identify them, undo them, transform them?
The approach also calls for the recognition of the expertise of researchers (artists or scientists), subject to numerous fragilities, particularly with regard to the hierarchy of knowledge and intellectual freedom, and confronted with the bureaucratic functioning of institutions. “At the same time as fruitful alliances, intersectoral networks and new pollinations between the multiple fields of research multiply, false folds creep in and sometimes become embedded, requiring a form of tacking and possible resistance when it comes to confronting an increasingly less smooth conception of science and the arts in all their arborescence,” observe the curators.
About the artists
The exhibition at the Galerie de l’UQAM takes place from September 6 to October 26It presents a display exhibiting the creations of all the participants in the project as well as the works of the following five artists:
The conceptual practice of Caroline Fillion is based on symbolic conjunctions or metaphors that challenge, divert or transgress the traditional postulates of the art world. It offers a reflection on the methods of legitimizing art through its institutions and on the relationship between the work, the artist and the commentary that precedes them.
Artist, author, filmmaker and independent researcher, Maryse Goudreau creates works where images, documents, artistic and participatory care gestures intersect. Since 2012, she has created a major archive dedicated to the beluga. The latter is constituted as an open work for which she assembles data and multiple creations developing over two decades.
Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens are an artist duo whose collaborative practice combines research with project-specific material exploration to address questions at the intersection of ecology, economics, epistemology, and history. Their recent work has focused on expanding concepts of hospitality, care, and interspecies communication.
Canadian visual artist and author of Nigerian origin, Kosisochukwu Nnebe works on topics such as visibility policies,embodiment or the use of food habits and language as counter-archives of colonial history. She is interested in the construction of an anti-imperialist world through acts of solidarity and speculative (re)imaginings of other pasts, presents and futures.
Leila Zelli is an artist from Tehran whose practice concerns the relationships we have with the ideas of “Others” and “Elsewhere”. More specifically, she devotes her art to the geopolitical space of the Middle East. She creates installations on site made using images, videos and texts often gleaned from the Internet and social networks.
To get an overview of the profiles of the eight other artists involved in the project, visit the site web from the UQAM Gallery.
A tour of the exhibition in the presence of Louise Déry will take place at the Galerie de l’UQAM on September 10, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
