MMFA 2023: Nalini Malani

NALINI MALANI

CROSSING BOUNDARIES

March 23 – August 20, 2023

Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion – Level S2

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) presents works of Nalini Malani, one of India’s most important contemporary artists. This is her the first-ever Canadian solo exhibition. It showcases her powerfully engaged works that address social inequalities and violence, the subject matter she has dealt with for more than 50 years. Through her art, she gives voice to the subjugated, marginalized, and oppressed, especially women.

Malani has developed a unique multi-media practice that encompasses video, film, animation, painting, drawing and immersive installations.

The exhibition consists of Malani's three works:

Can You Hear Me? (2018-2020).

An acclaimed video installation, an immersive nine-channel animation chamber consisting of eighty-eight animations hand-drawn with the artist’s index finger on an iPad. Marking her first use of digital technology to make drawings, this work is described by Malani as the human mind full of turmoil, fantasies and ideas. Literary characters and mythological figures, accompanied by curious sounds, overlap with allusions to political events, personal thoughts and fragments of text by leading writers from diverse cultural backgrounds that together address global issues of social injustice, including gender inequality, civil conflict and cultural hegemony.

The installation Can You Hear Me? by Nalini Malani at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Sarralves, Porto, 2020. Nine-Channel animation chamber. © Nalini Malani. Photo Filipe Braga

City of Desires—Crossing Boundaries (1992-2023)

It is a new and latest situ iteration of the artist’s ongoing Wall Drawing/Erasure Performance series, which uses drawing and erasure to explore the politics and poetics of memory. Materializing processes of remembrance and forgetting, this performative drawing prompts powerful reflection on the fragility of our shared traditions and experiences. Anchoring the project in the Montreal community, Malani has selected two Montreal-based artists, Iuliana Irimia and Cassandra Dickie, to collaborate on the drawing of the mural. The artwork will be on view at a busy junction in the Museum located close to the Contemporary Art Square. When the exhibition closes, the drawings will be erased in a performance directed by Malani. 

Notice further personages-faces in this mural that are not immediately noticeable. Search for more...

Ballad of a Woman (2023)

It is a major work created specially for the exhibition. It will be projected on the facade of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, as part of the MMFA’s Digital Canvas project. The projection starts each day at sunset and ends at 23:00.

This hand-drawn animation tells the story of a woman who is murdered and, in her afterlife, cleans up the traces of her death, protecting her killer. For Malani, this act after death symbolizes the undue burden of self-sacrifice borne by women since time immemorial. In this major new work, the bold colours, dramatic movement and dynamic lines of the film camouflage its darker message, like so many of life’s distractions that make suffering harder to discern. 

Nalini Malani

Recognized as the pioneer of video art in India, Nalini Malani (born in 1946) has been working in a variety of artistic media since the 1960s. Her practice integrates animation, theatre arts, photography, reverse painting on glass, performance art, cinema and video. Winner of the 2019 Joan-Miró Prize, she has notably presented her work in thirty solo museum exhibitions worldwide, including most recently at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Whitechapel Gallery, London, M+, Hong Kong and the National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and the National Gallery, London.

https://www.instagram.com/nalinimalani/

Visit the the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website to check on the opening hours and to purchase your ticket online.

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos of City of Desires—Crossing Boundaries mural © Nadia Slejskova

MMFA 2023: History of Women in Design

PARALL(ELLES)

A History of Women in Design

February 18 – May 28, 2023

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design. This major exhibition celebrates the key role women played in the world of design through a rich selection of art works and objects dating from the mid-19th century onwards. Parall(elles) highlights the remarkable work and contributions of those who worked outside of mainstream industrial design that historically has been inaccessible to the majority of women, as well as those who made contributions but received little credit until recently. It also examines the reasons why women were underrepresented in the field of design throughout the history, and delves on the expanded understanding of what constitutes design.

The term “design,” as it is most commonly used today, refers more specifically to industrial design – to the mass-produced, professionally designed object – thus excluding the work of the majority of women designers throughout history. For this reason, Parall(elles) presents viewers with a wide-ranging definition of “design” that extends from artisanal craftwork to industrial design and includes ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewellery, textiles, furniture, consumer products, graphics, fashion and interior design. The exhibition aims to present viewers with an alternative reading of design history – a parallel history – that serves to impress the exceptional influence of women designers on mainstream consciousness.

Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design highlights the breadth and complexity of these works by situating them against the backdrop of social, political and personal issues that shaped their experiences across time. The exhibition traces the development of educational and professional opportunities available to women, the evolution of the status of crafts and the impact that women’s rights movements had on their practices. It also considers the intersectionality of gender, identity, race, culture and class to provide a deeper understanding of the varied roles and achievements of women.

Visit the the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website to check on the opening hours and to purchase your ticket online.

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All Photos © Nadia Slejskova

Blue Metropolis 2023

BLUE METROPOLIS 2023

INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL
25th EDITION

PROGRAM UNVEILING

March 16, 2023

Online from April 12

Special event with Margaret Atwood on April 17

The future of the planet, of democracy and identities, of languages and people, and of our imaginations: this is the theme of the 2023 edition of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, gearing up to celebrate 25 years. It all kicks off online starting April 12, and culminates in a massive in-person program from April 27 to 30 in Montreal, at beautiful Hotel 10. What will the decades to come hold for our communities, our literature, our freedoms and aspirations? Festivalgoers will have a chance to look ahead with a staggering range of author events and performances in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages such as Welsh, Ojibway, ancient Greek, and Innu-Aimun, and featuring over 200 Quebec, Canadian, and international writers, thinkers, and artists converging on Montreal. Not to miss is a pre-Festival live event with Margaret Atwood on April 17.

"We are thrilled and honoured to offer such important authors and thought-provoking events for this special 25th anniversary edition of the Festival. We now reach beyond Montreal with our extensive online programming, and eagerly anticipate the buzz of in person gatherings and lively discussions. This year, our illustrious invited writers look to the future, I can't wait to join them and share their gaze."– Marie-Andrée Lamontagne, Director General, Programming and Communications, Blue Metropolis

Leading voices from here and abroad

This anniversary edition shines a bright light on Montreal’s thriving literary communities, and features local writers alongside nationally and internationally acclaimed authors.

As a very special pre-festival event, on April 17 at St. James United Church, Margaret Atwood is in conversation onstage talking about Old Babes in the Woods, her latest collection of short stories. The Festival’s illustrious April 27-30 program includes a packed lineup of storied writers—Duncan Mercredi, the 2023 laureate of the Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize; 2023 Azul Prize laureate Lina Meruane; British author Philippe Sands; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding; American-Canadian novelist Rivka Galchen; Israeli writer Yaël Neeman; French travel writer Sylvain Tesson; and 2022 Governor General-winning Anishinaabe author Eli Baxter, among many more. Michael Ondaatje, internationally acclaimed author of Warlight and The English Patient, will be recognized for his body of work with the 2023 Blue Metropolis International Grand Prize.

Not to be missed is a conversation on Leonard Cohen at the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim with writer and international law expert Philippe Sands, along with cantor Gideon Zelermyer; and a sci-fi retelling of the Haudenosaunee confederation story from Mohawk multimedia artist Skawennati, among other Indigenous events and many highlights. The Festival also presents a special evening with Blue Metropolis founder Linda Leith, a big night for the Atwater Poetry Project, local favourites Dimitri Nasrallah, Christopher DiRaddo, and Daniel Allen Cox on how Montreal is evolving, and an intimate conversation with most recent Blue Metropolis/Conseil des arts de Montréal New Horizons Prize laureates Tawhida Tanya Evanson (2022) and the 2023 winner, whose name will be unveiled on April 29^th during the Grand Prix award ceremony. 

Major event series

Blue Met is back with its always special series programming.

The regularly sold-out Jerusalem of the Mind event returns featuring Israel author Maya Savir and Palestinian filmmaker Rami Younis, with Montrealers Carlos Fraenkel and Ehab Lotayef. This year’s panel sparks questions like: What is an activist’s role? A writer’s? How does the current political situation affect literature in Palestine and Israel? Expect another packed Almemar series.

Meanwhile, the Book under Pressure series addresses current issues in the literary world and the book industry, while the popular Azul series features acclaimed authors Jorge Carríon, Cristina Morales and Carol Bensimon. Worth noting is the LGBTQ+ series, featuring a special Violet Hour reading event and numerous queer and trans authors, including Su J. Sokol, Festival spokesperson Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Laura Doyle Péan, Jen Currin, and 2023 Blue Metropolis Violet Prize laureate, playwright  Michel Marc Bouchard. The Festival’s series on sci-fi and fantasy draws readers into lesser-known, strange, and stimulating worlds-- queer speculative fiction, hope punk, Afrofantasy and graphic video books. The NEXT series is the most ambitious emerging artist programming yet. It focuses on English-language talent from underrepresented communities, offering workshops, carte blanche events, and podcasts featuring community leaders.

Get Your Festival Pass and rebates

The Festival Pass is back with a twist. For $25, festivalgoers have access to the Festival’s bountiful program, along with a special $25 rebate on books at Paragraphe Bookstore, the Festival’s official bookseller, which will be setting up shop at Hotel 10 from April 27 to 30 inclusively.

The future is online too

The Festival’s virtual program is really hitting its stride, with three events starting April 12: a tribute to Innu poet Josephine Bacon, winner of the First Peoples Prize; a conversation between Gioconda Belli and Claudia Piñeiro; and a discussion on capitalism and literature. The online programming kicked off in late February with the Tio’tia:ke/Montréal literary walking tour, a Strides podcast series that takes a decolonial look at Montreal. Tune in as well for a literary look at green Montreal with the Montréal vert walking-tour podcast series on April 23, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Plenty for kids and families

Presented in over 50 libraries, schools, Greater Montreal bookstores, and about 40 daycare centres across Quebec, the TD–Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival is an every-green, year-round affair. This spring’s activities will take place between April 21 and 30, with a full slate of events for the whole family on both weekends, and events exclusively for school groups during the week.

BLUE Metropolis AT A GLANCE

The Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival is one of the largest multilingual literary events in North America. For several days each year, writers from Quebec, Canada, and around the world converge on Montreal. Attendees are treated to live interviews, round-table discussions, public readings, debates, masterclasses, readings, and writing workshops. Every year, the Festival is built around several strong themes that bear witness to a keen social awareness and a passion for literature in all its richness.

Established in 1997, the Blue Metropolis Foundation is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to bring together people from different cultures to share the pleasures of reading and writing and encourage creativity and cross-cultural understanding. The Foundation presents the annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and offers a wide range of educational and social programs year-round in classrooms, libraries, and online, using writing and reading as therapeutic tools, to encourage students to stay in school, and to combat poverty and exclusion.

Printable program available.

For more information, visit the festival's website

McCord 2023: Karen Tam-Swallowing Mountains

 

Swallowing Mountains

A tribute to Montreal’s Chinatown Women

from 19th-20th centuries

Exhibition by Karen Tam, artist in residence

February 17 - August 13, 2023

The McCord Stewart Museum presents – as part of its Artist-in-Residence program – the exhibition Swallowing Mountains by multidisciplinary artist Karen Tam. This immersive installation is made up of objects from the McCord Stewart Museum’s collection, works created by the artist, objects belonging to members of the Chinatown community, and photographs. The exhibition explores the relative silence in public records and historical accounts of women in Montreal’s Chinatown in the 19th and 20th centuries. It also explores the discrepancy between the historical attraction to the Chinese and Japanese artifacts and the reality of Chinese women living in Canada since the late 19th century.

2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Chinese Immigration Act, which banned virtually all forms of Chinese immigration to Canada. This policy, combined with a head tax, led to a strong imbalance in the proportion of women within Chinese Canadian communities, who were prohibited from joining their husbands there. Despite their under-representation in the early 19th and 20th centuries, Chinese women’s contribution to Chinatown’s vitality and economy was considerable. Swallowing Mountains pays homage to many contributions of women who lived and worked in the neighborhood over the past century and a half.

Swallowing Mountains

The title of the exhibition refers to the name that the first waves of immigrants from China gave to Canada, Gold Mountain, in reference to the gold rush and the opportunity to make a fortune in Canada. Over time, the gold mountains of Canada’s El Dorado also became synonymous with the separation of families. Swallowing Mountains becomes a metaphor symbolizing the need to swallow, one kilometer at a time, the immense distance that separated family members in order to reunite them.

The exhibition displays sculptures, Chinese shadow puppets, drawings and textile works, and small installations reminiscent of the displays and decorations in Chinatown shop windows. The integration of Cantonese opera recordings, collected treasures, and photographs loaned by families, elders and people close to the Chinatown community aims to spark dialogue about the collections and to lay the groundwork for a future collection of Chinese archives in Montreal.

Karen Tam is a Montreal-based artist and curator whose research focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities through her installations in which she recreates Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters. Since 2000, she has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe and China, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, He Xiangning Art Museum, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 

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All photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For more information about current exhibitions and activities, visit the McCord Museum website.

DANS LE FLEUVE

 

DANS LE FLEUVE

February 19 - August 14, 2023

DANS LE FLEUVE is a contemplative art experience inspired by the St. Lawrence River. It will come to life along the underground corridor of the building located at 1250 René-Lévesque, accessible from the Bonaventure Metro station or by the staircase in the building's lobby, and will plunge visitors into a dreamlike, interactive, informative and narrative walk.

​​Walking, listening, seeing, feeling and knowing are the five stages of discovery along this underground corridor. The rich ecosystem of the river comes to life with poetic visual content, danced and animated. The voices of the SMAM Choir (Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal) represent the imaginary voice of the millennial river.

Information on the history, biodiversity and issues related to the river will be shared on infographic panels. The first peoples call it Magtogoek, the walking path, or Kaniatarowanenneh, big water stream. Its biodiversity must be protected, for the present and for future generations.

While visiting the installation, it will be possible to connect to the Suzuki Foundation's web page and sign the petition to ask for the protection of the marine areas of the St. Lawrence River.

Marinella Montanari, Jobel Art for the Earth:

"Jobel made its Montreal debut in 2019 at the Eureka Festival, organized by the Science Center at the Old Port. I felt a curiosity and affection towards the St. Lawrence River, and in 2020 I started to design an art project to share this feeling."

Julia Nau - RodeoFX:

"DANS LE FLEUVE allows us to bring this story, voice and movement into a space of bricks and concrete and share it with the people of Montreal."

Pierre Fitzgibbon - Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Minister Responsible for Regional Economic Development and Minister Responsible for the Metropolis and the Montréal Region:

“With works such as DANS LE FLEUVE, Quebec artists bring life to downtown Montréal for the benefit of those who live, work or visit there. It is a source of pride to see the emblematic St. Lawrence River embellish Montréal’s underground corridors.”

Michel Leblanc, President and CEO - Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal:

“The Chamber is pleased to support the first environmentally themed art installation of its ré·CRÉATION^MTL program as part of the ‘I love working downtown’ initiative, with the support of the Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et de l’Énergie. This video projection experience acknowledges the core role that the St. Lawrence River plays in our city and in Quebec, while also showcasing Montréal’s vast underground network. This new project is part of our plan to revitalize the downtown area and make it more appealing by creating unique experiences for workers.”

"I love working downtown" initiative:

The DANS LE FLEUVE project is part of the" I love working downtown" initiative. This initiative, set up by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM) with the financial support of the Ministère de l'Économie et de l'Innovation, aims to contribute to the economic revival of downtown Montreal by implementing actions to facilitate the return of workers to the downtown area and to enhance the attractiveness of the area.

JOBEL ART FOR THE EARTH

Founded in 2000, Jobel is a multidisciplinary arts organization whose services aim to raise awareness, inform and engage the community to contribute to environmental and social transformation. Jobel has created thousands of travelling projects between Europe and Asia and, in 2019, a new headquarters in Montreal. With a dynamic and daring team, our projects are deployed locally and internationally.

RODEO FX

Since 2006, Rodeo FX has demonstrated great expertise in the design of permanent and temporary installations, advertising production and content creation.

The Experience, VFX, Audio and Production teams, all passionate about their art, collaborate on all stages of each project. Creative to the bone, storytelling in our blood and collaboration in our DNA. Rodeo FX. Born to create.

STUDIO DE MUSIQUE ANCIENNE DE MONTRÉAL (SMAM)

For almost 50 years, SMAM has been guided by a commitment to excellence and carved out a place for itself in Canada's early vocal music world. Under the musical direction of Andrew McAnerney since 2015, the Ensemble comprises 12 to 18 professional singers chosen for the purity and clarity of their voices.

PROJECT PRESENTED BY JOBEL ART FOR EARTH and RODEO FX

In collaboration With Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal (SMAM)

In partnership with BentallGreenOak and David Suzuki Foundation

CREDITS

Creative direction Marinella Montanari

Production Julia Nau, Rachel Gauthier

Click here for the complete list of artists and collaborators.

MMFA 2022-2023: TUSARNITUT

 

ᑐᓴᕐᓂᑐᑦ TUSARNITUT!

Music Born of the Cold

November 10, 2022 – March 12, 2023

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting an exhibition that is a trans-historical exploration of the fundamental role music plays in Inuit life. It brings together artworks from the 1950s to the present, providing a circumpolar perspective and a unique opportunity to appreciate differences in style and content among artists from various arctic regions.

ᑐᓴᕐᓂᑐᑦ TUSARNITUT! translates literally as “pleasing sounds to the ear”. The practice of song and dance among the Inuit is linked directly to their environment, culture, and lands. The exhibition offers a glimpse into the art forms common throughout Inuit Nunaat (lands inhabited by the Inuit), the area that covers the circumpolar region spanning Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and in Russia Chukotka and Siberia. These lands are home to over 180,000 Inuit people. The exhibition offers a discovery of these musical traditions and shows how they continue to shape Inuit culture today.

The art works on display are drawn from the collections of the MMFA, the Avataq Cultural Institute, as well as from local and international lenders. There are over one hundred sculptures, prints, drawings and installations that are themed around music by such renowned Inuit artists as Karoo Ashevak, Kenojuak Ashevak, Pitseolak Ashoona, Mattiusi Iyaituk, David Ruben Piqtoukun, Annie Pootoogook, Kananginaq Pootoogook, Jessie Oonark and Niap (Nancy Saunders). The works are complemented by objects, artifacts, photographs, archival footage and music clips that allow the public to appreciate the rich Inuit musical traditions through sight and sound.

The focus of the presentation are two prominent musical genres:

qilaujjaniq (drum dancing) and

katajjaniq (throat singing)

ᑐᓴᕐᓂᑐᑦ TUSARNITUT! also highlights the cultural transformations and musical exchanges that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period when the widespread penetration of the southern populations towards north reached the traditional Inuit lands in the Arctic regions which led to Inuit adapting new instruments and musical ideas. These historical shifts provide a basis for highlighting the evolving appearance and function of contemporary Inuit artforms of expression dedicated to the flourishing of Arctic Indigenous languages, art, and musical practices integral to the processes of Indigenous self-determination today.

The exhibition’s guest curator Jean-Jacques Nattiez is also the author of La musique qui vient du froid : arts, chants et danses des Inuit. Published in French by Presses de l’Université de Montréal, this 488-page art book offers an anthropological and historical look at Inuit musical culture and a panorama of its diverse expressions. With its references to a host of online recordings, videos and archival documents, and its abundant illustrations, this book is, above all, a homage to the immense artistic talent and musical virtuosity of Inuit people who are born of the cold.

Click on images to enlarge them.

All Photos © Nadia Slejskova

Visit the the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website to check on the opening hours and to purchase your ticket online.