PROJET COMMUN N^o 1

Summer and fall 2022

DE L’ARROSOIR AU CYGNE

How does social acceleration affect the way artists spend time in their studios? Is letting the medium dictate the pace of production viable in a society where competition is so fierce?

Clay is a material that contrains spatio-temporal organization. It tends to reverse the more commonly understood power relationship between artists and their medium. Echoing artisanal techniques, the manipulation of clay, as an artistic practice at the crossroads of poetry and utility, is part of a deceleration dynamic that seems to symbolize a form of disalienation in front of the dictates of speed.

But is it possible to recycle time in the same way we recycle material, like clay? Does the time devoted to production allow the artist to enter into a lucid and intimate relationship with their work? Is taking more time to create fewer objects compatible with competition and art markets?

De l’arrosoir au cygne allows us to reflect on these questions by examining the processes embedded in the practice of Montreal artist Orise Jacques-Durocher within a poetic re-interpretation of her studio.

Installation views.

HANNA

Curator

Hanna Zeïda is an Algerian gallerist and author living in Tio'tia:ke/Mooniyang (Montreal). Graduated from the École de politique appliquée of the Université de Sherbrooke (UdeS), she is involved in the visual arts community as a cultural mediator and curator. With artist Malcom Odd, Hanna co-curated an exhibition at the Galerie d’art du Centre culturel de l’UdeS as part of Black History Month (2017) and, more recently, she curated a group exhibition at the Institut National Art contemporain (INAC) on the themes of the body and movement in visual art (2022). She has been part of the artistic collective Les Tisseuses since september 2021.

ORISE

Artist

Photo credit: Noémie Sylvestre

Orise Jacques-Durocher is a Quebec artist who lives and works in Montreal where she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University (2020). Her sculptural practice is driven by a desire to reimagine our understanding of objects and material world. At the center of her work, the medium of ceramics is celebrated for its exceptional possibilities of exploration and for its materiality, both trivial and extravagant. Her work has been featured in a variety of group exhibitions in Montreal as well as in Skaelskor, Denmark during a residency at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center as part of a Concordia University program.

YANNI

Public representative

Yanni Khennache is passionate about research on extremist movements and national security issues, holding a master's degree in public and international policies from UdeS. He evolves as a research assistant for the UNESCO-PREV Chair, working on various issues of social polarization. More personally, Yanni is a great athlete and a fan of music who is interested in different cultures and the practices that define them. Although he is challenged by the arts, he only visits exhibitions on occasion. His detachment from the artistic community will, according to him, allow Projet commun to obtain an external and enriching opinion.

Orise Old Works. Photo credits : (1) Orise Jacques-Durocher / (2-4) Noémie Sylvestre.

ORISE'S ARTISTIC APPROACH

The work of Orise Jacques-Durocher is motivated by a desire to reimagine our understanding of objects and material world. At the center of his sculptural work, clay, a malleable material with exceptional possibilities for transformation and experimentation, is the ally of her movements and discoveries. The know-how and the rigorous technical aspect related to ceramics is for Orise a tool not only to learn to understand the object, but also testifies to a relationship of commitment and care towards it. Her latest installation projects are particularly interested in the objectivity and subjectivity of utility, overproduction, handmade, invisible labor and domesticity. The material universes into which his work invites us have familiar contours, often domestic, but liberated, discreetly utopian. Her installations set up spaces where the common and the strange meet, where the precious and the modest equal each other.

HANNA'S CURATORIAL PRACTICE

Through her curatorial approach, Hanna is particularly interested in the weight of power dynamics on artistic practices and their dissemination. The role of curator assumes for her a responsibility to create spaces of expression for marginalized discourses, specifically emerging from decolonial and feminist community. Fascinated by interdisciplinary processes, her work is anchored in questions about our relationship to the body, spatial ethics, socio-political change and the creation of imagination as a source of reality.

DISCUSSION EVENING AROUND THE PROJET COMMUN N^o 1

On october 26, 2022, at Café Reine Garçon in Montreal, the members of the first cohort of Projet commun organized a discussion evening with the publics to share their thoughts and create a dialogue around their artistic proposal. With the intention of reinforcing the idea of experimental collaboration, members of the public were encouraged, during the conversation and the evening, to react, ask questions and share their ideas in relation to the Projet commun n^o 1. It was not only an event to learn more about Projet commun and its activities, but also valuable opportunity to learn from each other. *It should be noted that the conversation is in French.

DISSEMINATION PARTNER : PRODUIT RIEN

Because of a precious collaboration with Karen Trask and Paul Litherland from Produit Rien, the Projet commun n^o1 was presented in November at 6909 Marconi Street in Montreal. Karen is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans the fields of installation, performance and video. Paul is a visual artist who practices photography, performance and video. Together, they founded Produit Rien, a space dedicated to artistic production, exhibitions and workshops located in a former tofu factory in the heart of the Alexandra-Marconi district (Mile-Ex). To learn more about these artists and their projects, you can watch the magnificent video about them produced by La Fabrique culturelle.