CURATOR: MORIDJA KITENGE BANZA
+ ANNA BINTA DIALLO
BERIROUCHE FEDDAL
MATHIEU LACROIX
PATRICK HENRY
MICHAËLLE SERGILE

Dak’Art OFF / Habiter le monde : Esquisse d’une rencontre
05.21–06.04.2022
Off-site

It is with great pleasure that Centre CLARK presents a new iteration of the exhibition Habiter le monde which will be part of the Off programming of the 14 ᵉ edition of the Dakar Biennale, at the Maison des Cultures Urbaines de Ouakam. Initiated and curated by Moridja Kitenge Banza, this project brings together once again artists Anna Binta Diallo, Mathieu Lacroix, Michaëlle Sergile, Patrick Henry to which Berirouche Feddal is added. To this cohort of artists, will join two Montréal curators supported by LOJIQ, Geneviève Wallen and Joséphine Rivard. Thus, in addition to presenting the work of these artists, this project will allow the participants to find a space for meeting and exchange beyond Montréal, where a multitude of visual art projects will provide other reflections on how each person inhabits the world as a human being.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

Habiter le Monde : esquisse d’une rencontre (Inhabiting the World: Outline of an Exchange) is a reflection on the act of inhabiting a site, a space, a body, a geography. To live there by “choosing” modalities that allow us to become one with the territory on which we have chosen—or not—to reside.

For us, african and afro-descendant people who are part of this project, Montréal is the territory we cohabit. It is from here that I, you, he, she, we consider the world. It is from here that day to day our stories take root in a space that is as complex as the afro-descendant communities that live here.

In keeping with Felwine Sarr’s essay on interpersonal politics1, which invites us to renew the imaginary relationship we build with our fellow human beings and all living things, my curatorial proposal—which I think of as a visual art essay—raises questions about power issues that exist within a given territory. More specifically, it questions the long-term effects these issues have and the ways in which they shape us.

Drawing from their individually distinct North American realities, each of the artists in this exhibition present single or multiple works that foreground the singularity of their personal experiences. Through these distinct journeys, these voices express the plurality and complexity of our experiences and become an outline for a broader reflection.

– Moridja Kitenge Banza (translated by : Jo-Anne Balcaen)

1. Felwine Sarr, Habiter le monde. Essai de politique relationnelle, Montréal, Mémoire d’encrier, 2017.

More information on the exhibition presented at Centre CLARK in May 2021:

https://centreclark.httpcreations.cloud/en/exhibition/habiter-le-monde-esquisse-dune-rencontre/

BIOS

CURATOR

Canadian-Congolese artist Moridja Kitenge Banza was born in 1980 in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He holds degrees from l’Académie des beaux-arts de Kinshasa, from the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Nantes Métropole, and from the Humanities and Social Sciences faculty of the Université de La Rochelle.  In 2010, he was awarded the first prize of the Biennale of Contemporary African Art, DAK’ART for his video Hymne à nous and his installation work De 1848 à nos jours. He received the Sobey Art Award in 2020.  His work was part of exhibitions at the Musée Dauphinois (Grenoble, France); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Rosklide, Danemark); the Arndt Gallery and Ngbk (Berlin, Allemagne); the Biennale Internationale de Casablanca (Casablanca, Maroc); the Fondation Attijariwafa bank (Casablanca, Maroc); at the Fondation Blachère (Apt, France) as well as the BAnQ; Galerie Joyce Yahouda; OBORO; and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada). In 2020, his artworks were included in group exhibitions at the Phi Foundation and at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

ARTISTS

Anna Binta Diallo is a Canadian multi-disciplinary visual artist who investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives around identity. She was born in Dakar (Sénégal, 1983) and raised in Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, on the traditional territory of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. She completed her BFA at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art (2006) and received her MFA from the Transart Institute in Berlin (2013). Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including exhibitions in Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Taipei, Central Finland, and Berlin. Anna Binta Diallo has been the recipient of multiple grants and honours, notably from the Canada Council for the Arts,  the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and Francofonds. In 2019, Diallo was shortlisted for the Salt Spring National Art Prize, and in 2021 was awarded the Barbara Spohr Memorial Prize from the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre. She is currently based in Montreal, or Tio’tia:ke, on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka.

Originally from North Africa, or present-day “Algeria,” and more precisely the region of the Kabylia mountains, affiliated with the Igawawen of the Nath Irathen arc and the Amazigh people, Berirouche Feddal (Vrirouc nat uqassi) is a Montréal artist best known for his transdisciplinarity. He received his BFA (Honours) degree in Printmaking from Concordia University in 2020. His work has been presented in Montréal (Canada) at Bradley Ertaskiran, ARTCH-Emerging Contemporary Art, Ubisoft, L’art s’affiche, Maison de la culture de la Rivière-des-Prairies, Fofa Gallery and Stewart Hall Gallery, as well as at the Conserverie Marrakech (Marrakech, Morocco).

Mathieu Lacroix lives and works in Montréal. He has an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal, where he took an active part in disseminating the art works of students. Since 2003, Lacroix has participated in several group exhibitions in artist-run centres and cultural events in various locations throughout Quebec. His work was recently shown at McBride Contemporain and in Toronto as part of the 7a * 11d art event. He is an active member of the Jean–Couteau and Pique-Nique collectives.

Patrick Henry is a multidisciplinary artist of Haitian origin who has been based in Montreal since 2011. He received his degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2019. He received an award for excellence in sculpture from the McAbbie Foundation at UQAM’s École des arts visuels et médiatiques for his installation Je suis nouveau ici (2020). Having lived through many transitions and changing situations, he is interested in exploring the theme of “becoming” through sculpture, painting, installation, photography, and animation.

Michaëlle Sergile is an artist and curator working mainly on texts and books from the postcolonial period from 1950 to the present. Her artistic work aims to understand and rewrite the history of Black communities, and more specifically of women, through weaving. Sergile uses the lexicon of weaving, often perceived as a medium of craftsmanship and categorized as feminine, to question the relationships of gender and race.

CURATORS – LOJIQ delegation

Geneviève Wallen is an independent curator, writer, researcher and workshop facilitator based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. Her research centres on BIPOC healing platforms that counteract neoliberal definitions of care. She has written essays for C Magazine and anthologies such as Other Places: Reflections on Media Arts in Canada, edited by Deanna Bowen, and The Politics of Spatial Transgressions in the Arts, edited by Gregory Blair and Noa Bronstein. She is currently the Exhibition Coordinator for the FOFA Gallery, is a member of the collective YTB (Younger Than Beyoncé) Gallery, is the co-initiator (with Marsya Maharani) of Souped Up, is a member of the Black Curators Forum and the Board of Directors of the Centre for the Study of Black Canadian Diaspora, and has recently joined the editorial committee of the magazine Vie des arts.

Joséphine Rivard is a Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal based independent curator, dramaturg, cultural worker, and a graduate of UQAM’s MA in Art History program. Her current research examines curating as it relates to issues of neomaterialism, relationships, and community within interdisciplinary practices. Her recent exhibition projects and curatorial research include Écologies/Ecologies (Galerie AVE, 2017), Le rendez-vous : chantier de recherche dialogique (Centre Skol, 2018), À propos d’une corespiration (Éditions Résidence, 2020 and Verticale – centre d’artistes, 2021), Vers des cycles mouvants/Towards Moving Cycles (EXPRESSION, Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinthe, 2021), L’abri-désir (Projet Casa, 2021) and  Corespiration (Maison de la culture Rosemont, 2022).

This project is supported by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Les Offices jeunesse internationaux du Québec. It is realized in partnership with the Maison des Cultures Urbaines de Ouakam and the participation of the Délégation du Québec à Dakar.