Les rendez-vous Angus

We’re delighted to launch the first edition of the contemporary art exhibition Les rendez-vous Angus, a collaboration between Art Souterrain and the Société de développement Angus.

From September 6 to 24, 2023, discover the inspiring works of five Quebec artists at Technopôle Angus, an eco-district in the heart of Montreal. A selection of 12 installations will be deployed in key locations throughout the Technopôle. This first edition explores the theme Faire lieu : taking roots, questioning the relationship between contemporary art, urban evolution and the link with nature.

How to put down roots and create a sense of place in a neighborhood undergoing radical transformation? How do we think about plants and attachment to a place where wasteland vegetation is retreating, in order to grow living and working spaces and gardens? By paying attention to the plants placed in the landscaping as well as those that resist, and even those that intrude into the cracks of the building, we need to think about the communities that are being created. Thinking about growth, whether slow or rapid, co-presence, plant and living sensibilities, to better rethink the relationship between humans and nature in the city.

“Faire lieu” seeks to gently put down roots with works that seek to challenge the obvious, to show the patience of artists, their concern to tell the story of places through plants. Ceramics can be as much about plants through mythology and fantasized narratives as they are about botany, focusing on one species, milkweed, now celebrated after being called invasive. To “take root” is to set up experiments in order to become attached to this fast-growing neighborhood, and to create an environment to which the artistic proposals respond. All the works pre-exist, having had a life prior to the project, in some cases a very long one. The project revitalizes them, with the idea of bringing to the forefront artists who, for some of them, have long been involved in the territory of the relationship with the living.

– Bénédicte Ramade, curator of the exhibition