Underground Art Festival | Listen to the environment

Raising public awareness of environmental issues: this is the intention of the 16^e edition of the Underground Art Festival which opens with the theme Environment do you hear?.

Since its beginnings, the event has penetrated the spaces of Montreal’s underground network, mainly reserved for commercial galleries, to present works by recognized Canadian and international artists. This year again, more than 40 projects, supported by two curators, in seven locations in the underground city, are exhibited to the public from March 16 to April 7.

An event that invites the public to get involved

What do we want to hear, who should we hear? This new edition of the Underground Art Festival invites the general public to listen to the climatic, social and political crises. If we have been talking about ecology for decades, today it is about directly challenging the public on this subject. “Is he ready to support us in this process of transformation and deprogramming? Is he ready to commit to better considering our territory? », asks Frédéric Loury, founder and general director of the Underground Art Festival.

Highlighting clearcuts, floods, forest fires… Many works refer to problems linked to climate change, to the current state of nature which is bequeathed to us as a heritage, but also to environmental justice and acts of resistance to these problems.

Get closer to nature

The works take into account both political unrest and the increasingly significant absence of snow and cold. These problems are interrelated by the same cause: the current Western model, governed by capitalism, and what results from it, according to the curator of Canadian origin based in the United States Heather Davis, who made a selection of 16 Canadian artists and internationals for the occasion.

At the Place de la Cité Internationale, Secwépemc Nation artist Tania Willard raises awareness of British Columbia’s forest fires through the installation’s banners Carrying Memories of the Land (2022). The use of a red filter is reminiscent of the sky which was tinted with this color during the tragic events. The artist Micha Cárdenas, for her part, proposes to question the public’s sensitivity to permafrost. Although these issues are known in Canada, the experience is not direct, notes Commissioner Heather Davis. The Probability Engine: Permafrost and Ice (2024) introduces, into the mazes of the underground city center, references to natural places that are difficult to access. At the Jacques-Parizeau building, Caitlin Berrigan’s sound work highlights deep-sea mining.

The creations thus highlight the artifices of the city, concrete, plastic, even transformed materials. The urban place is a formatted place that distances us from an awareness of the forest, for curator Sonia Robertson.

Indigenous communities in the spotlight

For the Innu curator, it is an opportunity to highlight artists from indigenous communities who are interested in the notion of territory. “For 7,000 years, we preserved the territory. We are capable of helping things change,” underlines the woman who is also an artist and an art therapist whose reputation is well established in Quebec.

The public will discover Sonia Robertson’s selection made up of 14 artists from First Nations. Big names are in the spotlight, including Jacques Newashish who offers The seven directions (2021) at the Place de la Cité Internationale, or even Hannah Claus, whose Words going from one place to another (2017) is on display in a window at the Eaton Center. The Mohawk artist’s hanging panels revisit the commemorative plaque of the Hochelaga Rock monument. They rewrite the colonial story, using sentences full of holes or adding certain words. Also presented at the Eaton Centre, the work Flooded memories (2022), by Ludovic Boney, originally from Wendake, pays homage to the territory of Pessamit flooded during the construction of the Daniel-Johnson dam. Thanks to an echo sounder, the images make visible these ghostly trees, now at the bottom of the water.

It is important to emphasize that the curator intended to highlight indigenous artists less known to Montrealers. This is the case of Eruoma Awashish. Installation Kakike ickote / Eternal fire (2022) highlights the importance of the crow as a messenger to communities. The works of Catherine Boivin, Dominic Lafontaine, Patricia Langevin, Sophie Kurtness, MAHKU and France Trépanier are also part of the programming.

This edition of the Underground Art Festival calls for emotion, sensitivity, awareness and openness, because as Sonia Robertson proclaims, “the environment is not a separate subject”. It should be at the top of all current concerns.

The festival launch party takes place this Saturday, March 16 at 7 p.m. at the HQ of Underground Art, at 705, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, direction Décathlon – metro level.

Consult the festival program page