Photo of Didier Morelli by Clara Lacasse
Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Didier Morelli will be the next curator of the Manif d’art—The Quebec City Biennial in 2026.
Since 2000, Manif d’art has brought together artists at varying stages of their careers to take advantage of these innovative opportunities, and in so doing offers them a rare degree of artistic freedom and exposure through activities created and managed exclusively by the organization.
For the 12th edition of the Quebec City Biennale, Morelli chose the theme “Briser la glace / Splitting ice.”
Through the various exhibitions and events of this edition, the Manif d'art investigates issues pertaining to the environment and its cohabitants. How can our bodies wade and break through, or even simply survive the melting of snows, the warming of seas, the pollution of aquifers, the receding of coastlines, and the waning of freshwaters? Since Françoise Sullivan’s now-iconic Danse dans la neige (1948), Québec’s wintery landscape has been the site for feminist, movement-driven actions in which bodies and their natural environments are intertwined in choreographies of warm, living flesh meeting cold, white snow.
Navigating frozen waters and its many mutable forms—ice, slush, powder, blizzard, and more—artists have inhabited their ecosystems, combining different mediums as a means of communing with nature, politically affirming their identities, and denouncing the underlying relations between patriarchy, colonization, resource extraction and the precipitating climate disaster we face today.
Embracing its identity as the only winter Biennale in North America, Manif d’art 12 seeks to commemorate, celebrate, and continue intergenerational legacies of performance and its manifestations across embodied practices that are rooted in the land, specifically water and its many forms throughout the globe, seasons, and climates.
A staple of the Canadian art scene, Manif d’art—The Quebec City Biennial is the only winter biennial in North America. The event presents the work of over 100 local, national and international artists. Besides its many exhibitions, the event offers a plethora of activities based on its global theme renewed for every iteration.
Morelli holds a Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture (FRQSC) Postdoctoral Fellowship, with the Art History Department and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). With this funding, his research examines how second-wave feminist performances subverted urban functionalism by imagining alternate modes of embodiment in Montreal and Toronto during the 1970s. In addition to being the curatorial research assistant for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) career retrospective of the photographer Evergon (2022), Morelli also curated Traversée/Crossing at Stewart Hall Art Gallery (2022); Jardins sans murs at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment (2023); and Sportification at Artexte (2024). Previously the associate editor at Espace art actuel, his writing has also been published in Art Journal, CTR: Canadian Theatre Review, C Magazine, CBC Arts, Esse Arts + Opinions, RACAR, Spirale, and TDR: The Drama Review.
The 12th edition of the Manif d’art—Quebec City Biennale “Briser la glace / Splitting ice” will be held February 28–April 19, 2026.