Discipline: visual arts

tanha gomes

Tanha Gomes is the recipient of 2020-21 PWM + MAI joint support for artists* interested in working with a dramaturg.

Visual artist and cultural worker, Tanha Gomes has worked in several artist-run centres and art galleries in Montreal. Since 2011, she has been involved in initiatives that bring art to communities with people of all ages.

Born into a multicultural family in Brazil, she moved to Canada as a teenager and has since lived between these two worlds. Her immigration experience leads her to explore the links between displacement, death and memory. Fascinated by the traces of personal history on people’s bodies and trajectories, she uses photography in order to conduct intimate and delicate explorations of identity. She seeks to create contemplative works using time as raw material, often with long exposures that require bodies to remain still. Tanha’s images are marked by a performative aspect, through simple imprints or a promise of movement. Recently graduated from a master’s degree in Arts Education, she aspires to develop her artistic practice around cultural identity.

This partnership is supported by the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal as part of l’Entente sur le Développement Culturel, and by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Photo credit: Daniele Barroso

cécilia bracmort

Cécilia Bracmort is a French and Canadian artist/curator who favours the mixing of genres, transdisciplinarity and experimentation in her art and curatorial practice.

Through her multifocal vision linked to her different “layers of identity”, Cecilia Bracmort’s projects create bridges between themes to which she feels connected, such as history, identity, ecology and spirituality.

Through her artistic and curatorial work, she wants to open the door to other perceptions of the world to emerge, to encourage people to think outside the “white” box and to invite them to see the world from new angles.

In 2019, she curated the exhibition Reclaming My Place at Warren G Flowers Art Gallery at Dawson College, showcasing the works of artists Shanna Strauss, Cedar-Eve and Sharon Norwood and calling for greater visibility of BIPOC women artists in the arts community. Supported by Alliance in 2018-29, this exhibition will be presented again in 2021 at Lethbridge Center. Her new Alliance project aims at improving the visibility of her profile in the visual arts scene and refining her communication skills.

diane hau yu wong

Diane Hau Yu Wong is the recipient of 2020-22 articule + MAI joint support for curators.

Diane Hau Yu Wong is an emerging curator and art historian based in unceded Coast Salish Territories & Tiohtiá:ke territory. She graduated with a BFA in Art History from Concordia University in 2018. Her curatorial practice and research are largely based on her experience as a second-generation immigrant and the intersection between community and diasporic identity.  For the articule + MAI support for curators, Diane is examining digital futurism as a method to re-imagine a better world and sustainable solidarity among BIPOC communities through technoculture and speculative fiction. She most recently curated Centre A’s 2019 recent graduate exhibition titled (dis)location (dis)connect (dis)appearance, examining the loss of language, tradition, and culture in the diasporic community.

This partnership is supported by the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal as part of l’Entente sur le Développement Culturel, and by the Canada Council for the Arts.

 

soroush aram

Soroush Aram is the recipient of 2020-21 Mandoline hybride + MAI joint support for artists. He is an Iranian multidisciplinary visual artist working in Montreal. After completing a course in Fine Arts at the University of Tehran in 2002, Soroush developed a particular aesthetic that interweaves drawing and performative art and juggles between images of the past and dreams of the future. His work has been presented and recognized in Iran since 2010. Today, Soroush’s artistic career takes place mainly in Canada, where he gradually integrates the different spheres of contemporary Quebec art scene, by participating in exhibitions, residencies, workshops and artist support programs (DAM; Montréal en Arts; SKOL; Montréal Arts Interculturels). As part of Alliance, Soroush’s project Réminescence explores traces of the past and memory through a series of drawings of recovered objects from the music industry, a performance and videos from interviews conducted by the artist.
This partnership is supported by the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal as part of l’Entente sur le Développement Culturel, and by the Canada Council for the Arts.

marven clerveau

Marven Clerveau is a self-taught multidisciplinary visual artist who began to gain the acclaim of a wider audience in 2014. As a young child, he would draw pictures inspired by TV cartoons and Picasso. He has participated in numerous projects and exhibitions, and won several prizes for his art.

His work with the Association de Montréal pour la déficience intellectuelle (AMDI), membership in the organization Diversité Artistique Montréal (DAM), participation in the project Tandem créatif with Exeko, and current involvement in the Gang à Rambrou have all allowed him to develop his techniques, and expand his renown.

Marven loves exploring and mixing different styles and mediums. Most recently, his focus has been on figurativism and work which incorporates newspaper into acrylic paintings.

anahita norouzi

Anahita Norouzi (born in Tehran in 1983) is originally from Iran and lives in Montreal. Her interdisciplinary practice spans from spatial installations to sculpture, photo, and video-based works. She holds degrees in Fine Arts and French Literature from Concordia University in Montreal. 

For the past ten years, she has traveled often between Iran and Canada to conduct her research and pursue her work, which investigates the condition of displacement in relation to notions such as memory, migration and identity. She actively questions the dichotomous conditions provoked by her particular perspective – as an Iranian citizen and distant observer, from Canada, of her culture of origin.

Anahita Norouzi has taken part in several individual and collective exhibitions internationally. Most recently she has had shows in Canada, Germany and Iran. She was a finalist for the Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize for pieces shown at the Royal College of Art in London and in Dubai. She has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, and is currently working on a show that will be presented in 2021.

bahar taheri

At the centre of Bahar Taheri’s work is a critical reflection on current affairs in society. The social and historical context in which she grew up has had a significant influence on her work. Originally from Iran, Bahar grew up in Tehran. Besides her curiosity and fascination with history, the experience of living in a region beset by political and cultural conflict leads her to trace the roots of these events across time.

Bahar’s choice of medium differs from one project to another, depending on the concept, though she mainly uses painting. Aesthetics and beauty play an important role in her work and she devotes special attention to detail and ornamentation in keeping with her culture baggage.

Bahar’s previous projects have addressed issues of gender, identity, collective memory and the manipulation of the mass media. She is currently conducting research on architectural structure and its relationship to power and religion.

cécilia bracmort

Cécilia Bracmort is an artist and curator with an interest in the cross-disciplinarity, the mixing of genres, and experimentation. She was born in Creil, France, has roots in the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe, and has lived in Montreal since 2012. Her curatorial and creative work draws on her various layers of identity as much as on the notions of movement (walking, running, performance), spaces, history and memory (memorial spaces and monuments).

Cécilia holds a masters in cultural mediation and communication from Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, a bachelors in philosophy of art from Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, and a bachelors in fine arts from Bishops University. She has participated in numerous theatre and visual arts projects both in Paris and Montreal.

In 2017 Cécilia was an invited curator as part of the Montréal/Havana exchange, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Cuba. In August 2018 she became administrative coordinator at the artist-run centre articule.