Préface 38

LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE always proposes site-specific residencies based on the relationship between the artwork and the premises. From 2014 à 2016, faithful to this mode, four projects explored, furthermore, the sometimes troubled relationship of the individual with its environment.

In the fall of 2014, Nancy Samara Guzmán Fernández and Rodrigo Frías Becerra sneaked into the bureaucratic universe of the government employees scattered every day on the 31 floors of the Marie-Guyart office tower. The Mexican artists, weaving through the screens forming the work cubicles, brushing lightly some green plants that were expected to animate the decor frozen under artificial lighting. These plants, Not Wild, But Still Life, who could be seen in the windows, gave off a friendly impression of the building, but in reality, everything was ordered to keep workers in an environment foremost functional.

In 2015, the Transcultures exchange program Vice Versa wove a network of residencies between the Web, Quebec, and Mons. In that context, artists Alice Jarry (Montreal) and Vincent Evrard (Liege) were paired to conceive and build an installation inspired by diffraction that explored and “brought into light” this phenomenon with the help of glass, mechanisms, and electronic devices. According to the co-creators, Lighthouses is at once plastic, poetic and metaphorical, because the work reflects the process by which the light is deflected or diffused in beams of different colours when it encounters an obstacle: this process mirrors their work methodology, their material and what occurred in their collaboration and the premise of creation.

In 2015, also, the Canadian-Mexican Michelle Teran furthers her research on disturbances in the urban environment (previous residency in 2006). This time, moved by the issue of social housing and urban diversity, she explored downtown Quebec City. Five social organizations concerned with the same questions opened their doors to her. She shot videos documenting their activities, their mission and specific cases. These videos fed the discussion around the issues to which this “art sociologist” wants to raise public awareness.

Finally, in the spring of 2016 the Thai artist Jedsada Tangtrakulwong had to adjust to our persistent winter. Through his wanderings in the cold of the environment, he was fascinated to see how the City had designed a way to swaddle the trees to protect them. His installation, Adjust, reproduced in the gallery this manner to be creative in order to survive. Everything becomes a matter of adjustment, in art as in horticulture.