[PRESS RELEASE] Announcement of the 2023-2026 Montreal Studios Cohort

MONTREAL, MARCH 2, 2023 - Fonderie Darling is pleased to announce the names of the 8 laureates of its Montreal Studios Program. The 2023-2026 cohort will be composed of Ayam Yaldo, Kuh Del Rosario, Maggy Hamel-Metsos, Rémi Belliveau, Renée Condo, Shanie Tomassini, Michaëlle Sergile and Walter Scott. 

The Fonderie Darling is honoured by the impressive number of applications received. With a record-breaking number of applications received, totalling at 150, and the highest rate of diversity of applicants present yet, such interest tremendously encourages the mission of the institution. Within this landscape marked by the growing instability of artists' studios and real estate speculation, the availability of affordable and sustainable work spaces for artists in our city is paramount to ensure the flourishing of contemporary artistic creation. At the same time, the need for community, for fortified and regenerated relationships between artists, cultural workers, institutions and public, proves paramount in this post-pandemic climate. 

The selection committee was composed of Mojeanne Behzadi, director of Art Speaks and curator of Artexte, Florence-Agathe Dubé-Moreau, independent curator and writer, Dominique Fontaine, independent curator, the Fonderie Darling’s programming team, composed of Caroline Andrieux, founder and artistic director, and Milly-Alexandra Dery, curator.. The committee members unanimously applaud the high quality of this record number of applications and the undeniable quality of current practices that enrich the Montreal arts scene/milieu. 

The final selection of the 2023-2026 Montreal Studios laureates reflects Fonderie Darling’s commitment to emerging and exploratory artistic practices. It brings together a group of artists who have been selected according to their artistic excellence, the potential impact of the residency on their career, the diversity of their perspectives, approaches and techniques, and finally, their potential to nurture and contribute to the growing artistic community that makes up the Fonderie Darling. 



2023-2026 LAUREATES

Ayam Yaldo’s practice uses video, performance, ceramics and installation as tools for worldbuilding and critical storytelling. The artist’s virtual spaces become  inhabitable sites, as vestiges of the past real or imagined, through which she explores the themes of Mesopotamian archaeology, ancestral memory, and cultural displacement.  

Kuh Del Rosario works with common, inexpensive, single-use objects, as well as living materials that result from what she refers to as ‘the rubble of life’. Framed by animist and alchemic belief systems, her sculptural practice serves to re-imagine the lifespan of objects by interrogating their capacity for growth, evolution and decay. 

Maggy-Hamel Metsos’ body of work consists of a series of interventions and interventions that respond to the sites in which they are made, found, or presented. Through meticulous research and poetic interpretation, architectural elements and found objects are seen as symbols which speak to the narrative potential of objects, or their ability to contain meaning that exceeds their materiality. 

Interdisciplinary artist Rémi Belliveau's practice centers around the notion of belonging, particularly with regard to issues of gender and cultural hybridity. Using the archive, both fictional and real, as a critical and self-reflective tool,  they seek to deconstruct and reprogram the foundational, structural, and imaginary principles of the Acadian culture to which they belong. 

Renée Condo's practice  centers around the concept of interconnectedness, of the flow, balance, harmony, duality and reciprocity that mark the relationships between all living entities, particularly in link with Mi'kmaq cosmologies. Wooden beads are the primary vessels through which she explores these beliefs, valued by the artist for their ability to carry spirit through form, to transmit knowledge through careful handling, making and exchange. 

Shanie Tomassini’s practice incorporates technological objects, consumer products, and traditional ceramic techniques into sensorial installations that evoke the passage of time, the transformational potential of objects, and the fertile qualities of destruction. Through the lenses of sustainability, craft and ecofeminism, she reflects on the sacredness that permeates the everyday.

Working mainly with archives from the post-colonial period, from 1950 to the present day, Michaëlle Sergile uses weaving to understand and rewrite the history of black communities, and more specifically that of Afro-descendant women. Traditionally associated with craftsmanship and the feminine, the medium of weaving enables her to question relations of domination linked to gender and ethnicity.

Walter Scott’s interdisciplinary practice integrates  writing, video, performance and sculpture. His subjects, notably the infamous comic book character Wendy, offer satirical interpretations of contemporary anxieties and institutional critiques while provoking questions of representation, cultural production, popular culture, and the boundaries between public and private life. 

 

ADDENDUM TO THE PRESS RELEASE — MONTREAL, SEPTEMBER 1, 2023 

Fonderie Darling announces the appointment of artist Michaëlle Sergile to the 2023-2026 Montreal Studios program. Pre-selected by the jury, Sergile was invited to join the cohort following the withdrawal of newly Vancouver-based artist Shaya Ishaq.