La cueillette | The Foray

Zoom launch, 14 April, 4:00 – 5:30pm
Publication Launch and a Virtual Roundtable Presented by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art
Free & Open to the Public

Serena Desaulniers, Noémie Fortin, Christa Nemnom, Patricia Pérez Rabelo and Cailen Pybus
Moderated by Johanne Sloan

How might curatorial practices be brought into dialogue with mushroom foraging? Since spring 2020, an interdisciplinary group of graduate students have considered this question, which was first raised in Dr. Johanne Sloan’s seminar “The Anthropocene: Theory, Activism, Art.” Five students from this seminar further explored these ideas as part of a student-led curatorial project, with the support of their professor and of the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment. Originally planned as a gallery exhibition at the Foundation, their initiative evolved into a virtual publication that branches out beyond the original forested site in Saint-Edmond-de-Grantham (QC).

Inspired by the writings of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, this project mobilizes the figure of the mushroom and the world of possibilities offered by the foray. The publication presents artworks by Jean-Pierre Aubé, Dean Baldwin Lew, BGL, Raphaëlle de Groot, Jérôme Fortin, Pascal Grandmaison, Isabelle Hayeur, John Player, Yoshihiro Suda, and Francine Larivée. Amid a global environmental crisis, these works are framed as propositions for how to live and flourish in a troubled world, and the authors delve into themes of foraging, entanglement, contamination, resources, and traces.

Join us for this launch event to learn more about the curatorial and writing process behind La cueillette | The Foray. Note that the presentations will be in English, but the Q&A portion will welcome questions in English or French. The virtual publication features essays by the roundtable’s six speakers:

• Serena Desaulniers’s current research explores how diasporic communities develop a sense of national identity through textiles within both the institutional and home setting.

• Noémie Fortin’s academic and curatorial research interests lie in artistic practices and institutional models rooted in rural areas and turned towards ecological art.

• Christa Nemnom’s main research interests include modern avant-gardes, sensory studies, and more recently environmental issues as addressed in visual arts.

• Patricia Pérez Rabelo’s current research focuses on the collaboration between humans and nonhumans in making buildings to resituate agency as belonging to everything and everyone.

• Cailen Pybus is an architectural designer whose research specializes in digital storytelling for cultural heritage. Recently graduated, he now teaches interior design and architecture.

Moderated by Dr. Johanne Sloan, professor in the Department of Art History at Concordia University, who taught the seminar ARTH 643 The Anthropocene: Theory, Activism, Art and also wrote a text for La cueillette | The Foray.