Of the land

From September 8 to October 24, 2021, Galerie de l’UQAM is pleased to host an exhibition in collaboration with MOMENTA Biennale de l’image as part of its 17^th edition, entitled Sensing Nature. In Of the Land, artists Carolina Caycedo, Taloi Havini, Ts̱ēmā Igharas and Erin Siddall, Kama La Mackerel, Miriam Simun and Eve Tagny address human connections to land.

The exhibition

The Sensing Nature edition of MOMENTA is rooted in two complementary notions: nature that senses and humans sensing nature. In this biennale, we are making room for “other” perspectives so that we may reach more sensitive forms of cohabitation.

In collaboration with 14 venue partners, MOMENTA is presenting 51 artists from 24 countries in 15 exhibitions, including a collective garden, an outdoor augmented reality tour, and an online performance program. A longing for togetherness—for love—echoes insistently in the exhibitions, inviting us to fathom other possible forms of worldmaking. The artists propose that we listen to—and observe, smell, touch, speak to—the land, the water, the air not with the aim of distantly understanding, grasping, or exploiting, but to resonate, to vibrate, to be together. Or, perhaps, with no aim at all. Their works celebrate that we are in relation with nature, that we are of nature.

The artists in Of the Land, more specifically, are concerned with our destructive relationships with surroundings seen as a supposedly inexhaustible “other” and the way that colonial seizing of territory has disrupted ancestral relations with the land. In this exhibition, ecology is considered beyond the natural, as the artists explore gendered and racialized stereotypes compounded with the commodification of nature.

About the artists

Carolina Caycedo (born in London, United Kingdom; lives in Los Angeles, United States) examines the interrelations between humans and nature from the angles of sustainable development, access to resources, and economic and cultural equity. She combines her multidisciplinary art practice with an activist engagement through which she denounces social and environmental injustices
carolinacaycedo.com

Taloi Havini (Nakas Tribe Hakö, born in Arawa, Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea; lives in Sydney, Australia) is interested in the sociopolitical history of Bougainville. Her ongoing investigation into the expanding environmental degradation of her birthplace is shown through the multi-channel video installations in her Habitat series.
taloihavini.com

Ts̱ēmā Igharas (Tāłtān, born in Smithers, Canada; lives in Smithers and in Vancouver, Canada) delves into the connection between bodies and the land, and challenges extractivism-related issues through Indigenous resistance strategies and methodologies. Her works are often articulated around interventions made directly on the land—either by her or by corporate mining industries.
tsema.ca

Erin Siddall (born in Burnaby, Canada; lives in Vancouver, Canada) reveals invisible environmental risks, hidden stories, and traumatic events by probing representation of the unrepresentable. In her mainly photographic practice, she strives to shed light on shadowy areas and on the arbitrary divisions between what is deemed safe and what is considered dangerous.
erinsiddall.com

Kama La Mackerel (born in Pamplemousses, Mauritius; lives in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, Canada) explores justice, care, love, and individual and collective emancipation in socially engaged and anti-colonial works. In their practice, which combines performance, photography, installation, dance, theatre, textiles and poetry, they aim to heal the wounds of colonialism and multiply possibilities for being.
lamackerel.net

Miriam Simun (born in Silicon Valley, United States; lives in Lisbon, Portugal, and in New York, United States) is interested in encounters between bodies, human and nonhuman, and techno-ecosystems—ecosystems resulting from cutting-edge technologies and globalized market economies with vast ecological impacts. Simun creates performances, videos, and polysensory installations in which hybridity and assemblage serve as a basis for thinking of a transhumanist future.
instagram.com/seamoonseemoonsimun

Eve Tagny (born and lives in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, Canada) is interested in nature, especially the cycles, rhythms, forms, and materials through which it is modulated. Combining performance, video, and installation, her practice unfolds essentially around the figure of the garden—a space that she sees as both natural and theatrical, based in power dynamics and colonial histories.
evetagny.com

Augmented reality route

MOMENTA’s first augmented reality project, the Liquid Crystals interactive route presents 11 works in augmented reality near the exhibition spaces. Wander around the city and experience the works, accessible as filters using your mobile device. Visit MOMENTA’s website to access the project website and the augmented reality works.

Artists featured: Frances Adair Mckenzie, alaska B, Scott Benesiinaabandan, Anna Binta Diallo, Maryse Goudreau, Ts̱ēmā Igharas, Lisa Jackson, Kama La Mackerel, Malik Mckoy, Alex McLeod, Sabrina Ratté.

An Indigenous community garden in the heart of downtown

Under the title TEIONHENKWEN Supporters of Life, an urban ecosystem is taking shape in the outdoor space north of the Grande Bibliothèque/BAnQ. Created by artist T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss in collaboration with Silverbear and Joce TwoCrows Mashkikii Bimosewin Tremblay, the garden features local varieties of native plants. It is a gathering space accessible to all.

About MOMENTA

MOMENTA Biennale de l’image is an international contemporary art biennale devoted to the image. Its mission is to generate a sensitive and sensible impact on the world around us by means of images. The event implements unifying and structuring initiatives for art dissemination and education, to encourage reflection on and access to contemporary art. Founded in 1989 as Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal, the organization was renamed MOMENTA Biennale de l’image in 2017. At its last edition in 2019, the biennale included 13 exhibitions, 39 artists, and 40 public events, and public attendance totalled more than 210,000 exhibition visits.

Support provided by