Sébastien Cliche

Sébastien Cliche is a multidisciplinary artist and teacher based in Montreal. His practice, which takes the form of performative installations, also includes photography, textual works, video, and sound creation. His installations are presented as hybrid workspaces where function and fiction intertwine. These evolving situations are based on generative processes, whether chemical, mechanical, or computerized. In his studio, digital tools interact with obsolete technologies and traditional craftsmanship. He practices a form of bricolage that offers a critical distance from the tools and networks that shape our daily lives.

Through his work, he questions the notion of control and its social and psychological implications. He seeks to experiment with the contradictions inherent in the feeling of mastery (of oneself or one's environment) by approaching this theme through the prism of a paradox where control is linked to its antinomy: letting-go.

He also explores non-linear narratives, engaging the viewer in an active reading of the work. To achieve this, he employs a variety of strategies: closed-circuit cameras, scale effects, loops and recursive motifs. The way in which the narrative is constructed thus becomes an essential component of his work, exposing the viewer to the construction of the story in which, he or she, becomes one of the agents.

Sébastien Cliche's work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions — notably at the Centre d'art contemporain de Meymac (France, 2008), Momenta Art (New York, 2013), Le Lieu (Quebec, 2017), AXENÉO7 (Gatineau, 2019), Espace F (Matane, 2021), VU (Quebec, 2023), CIRCA (Montreal, 2024) as well as in established festivals such as MUTEK (Montreal, 2005 and 2010). In 2012, he received the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman fellowship in contemporary art, and in 2014, he has published Doublings a book about the project La doublure presented at Galerie de l’UQAM (Montreal, 2012).