Can’t make sense of record-breaking weather? Take a trip to Art Souterrain

Montreal’s underground city, or the Réso as it’s more officially known, is a place where windchill is the stuff of myth. It’s a subterranean neighbourhood, 33 kilometres of controlled climate — a network connecting more than 2,000 tenants, including shops and office buildings, museums and universities. And for a few short weeks every year, it’s also home to Festival Art Souterrain, a contemporary art exhibition that will return this Saturday, running through April 7.

For Art Souterrain, a five-kilometre stretch of the Réso will be programmed with works by more than 40 local and international artists — photography, video, sound installation, performance and more. The prospect of descending into the cavernous shopping mall beneath the city is typically an inviting proposition, especially during the first few weeks of March, but Montreal just logged its second warmest winter on record, a season so balmy that a bear at the Ecomuseum Zoo gave up on hibernation.

“In Montreal, there was basically no snow all winter, which is so unusual,” says Heather Davis, who co-curated Art Souterrain’s 16th edition with Sonia Robertson. “I think that the reality of climate change is really making itself very apparent.” And as it happens, this year’s exhibition is all about confronting that dire reality. Its title: Environment, Can You Hear?

Davis is an expert on the topic of art in the Anthropocene. She’s written on the subject for nearly 20 years, and she’s also a member of the interdisciplinary research team, Synthetic Collective. In curating Art Souterrain, an eco-friendly approach was important to Davis. It’s one reason why installations and sculptural works are largely absent from the program. (Transporting art, whether by air or by truck, accounts for much of the art world’s carbon footprint.)

Instead, photography is the dominant focus, and works will be appearing in seven buildings throughout the Réso network. You can find the exhibition at Centre Eaton, Place Ville Marie, Édifice Jacques-Parizeau, Centre de Commerce Mondial de Montréal, Place de la Cité Internationale, Place Montréal Trust and Palais des Congrès de Montréal.

That said, plenty of folks will discover the festival entirely by accident. An estimated 500,000 people wander through the underground city every day, but however Montrealers happen to encounter Art Souterrain, Davis sees it as a chance to think about an issue that’s difficult to comprehend, especially in a winter like this one. We don’t always have the language — or the opportunity — to get our minds around what’s happening, but according to Davis, that’s where art can be useful. It can remind us to take care of what we have — “to sit with the realities a bit easier,” she says. And it can help us imagine new ways forward — “futures that aren’t just dystopian, which I think is sometimes hard to do.”

“There’s something really beautiful about seeing a work of art that might really strike you and might make you think differently about your day or about your relationship to the environment,” says Davis, who gave us a list of festival projects that demand a trip underground. However you may find yourself there, these works are worth seeking out.

Here’s where to find them.

Michelle Bui – Baby’s Breath, Corset, Stud, Mikado, Oyster, Les membranes (terra cotta)

Location: Place de la Cité Internationale, ground floor

Bui is a Montreal-based artist known for disarming still life photographs that involve ordinary — but unusual — combinations of objects. She might arrange plastic wrap, electrical cords and rubber gloves with cut flowers and/or bits of shiny raw meat.  “[They’re] very beautiful, kind of sensual, almost body-like images,” says Davis, and this selection of Bui’s work will be hard to miss. According to Davis, it’s one of the more public-facing projects in the festival, appearing in ground-floor vitrines that will face the street.

Dayna Danger – End of the World

Location: Place de la Cité Internationale, ground floor

Like Bui’s work, this photo by Dayna Danger will appear in a large window above ground — daring viewers to venture downstairs. This particular work is part of an ongoing series by Danger, a Métis/Saulteaux/Polish artist who now lives in Montreal. “[It’s] this really stunning image of an Indigenous femme person who’s standing on a ledge and very boldly looking at the camera,” says Davis. “There’s something about that image, I think, that really signifies a kind of sturdiness, and really confronts the viewer — not in an aggressive way, but with a kind of steadfastness of expression that shows the ongoing continuity of Indigenous peoples and the ways in which Indigenous peoples are at the forefront of environmental movements, and especially environmental justice movements.”

Ravi Agarwal – Down and Out: Labouring under Global Capitalism

Location: Édifice Jacques-Parizeau, underground

Many of the works appearing in the exhibition draw connections to the exploitative nature of colonialism, and according to Davis, Agarwal’s work is a strong example of how that theme runs through the festival. For Art Souterrain, she’s curated a selection of photographs by the New Delhi-based artist, and the images capture his time spent with migrant labourers in India. “Some of the works we’re showing are from 20, 25 years ago,” says Davis, “when he was documenting the beginning effects of massive globalization on poor communities in India.”

Pat Kane – Hunt for Healthy Food

Location: Centre de Commerce Mondial de Montréal, ground floor

If you lived in the far north, what would be on your grocery list? Food security is a major issue in the region, and Yellowknife photographer Pat Kane has been documenting the story of residents’ relationship to food, especially among the Indigenous communities who live there. Global warming is disrupting traditional hunting practices, for example, presenting a threat to Indigenous culture and basic well-being. Art Souterrain will be presenting photographs from two of Kane’s recent series: The Hunt for Healthy Food and Brand Loyalty. The latter is a series of still-life photos where pantry staples are the stars: southern imports like Carnation Milk and Kraft Dinner.

Imani Jacqueline Brown – Follow the Oil

Location: Centre Eaton, underground

Art Souterrain describes this interactive project as a “scrolly-telling” experience that maps the oil and gas infrastructure of the artist’s native Louisiana. It’s an investigative report that reveals how industry has devastated the state’s coastal wetlands, but the story Brown presents doesn’t begin with the arrival of the oil companies. According to Davis, the work highlights how ecological collapse can be traced to the history of slavery and colonization.

Sammy Baloji – Raccord #2, Usine de Shituru

Location: Centre de Commerce Mondial de Montréal, ground floor

This piece by Sammy Baloji also explores the link between environmental destruction and colonial power, but the photographer is particularly interested in the history of his home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. This piece from 2012 is one of Davis’s festival highlights: a photo collage that places an image of a Congolese mining pit side by side with a verdant postcard landscape. It’s a stark contrast, but as Davis notes, the work explores an aspect of the climate crisis that is hardly black and white.

“Some of the mines that he is documenting are for minerals that are fuelling what we call green technologies,” she explains. “If we really want to think about moving away from the deadly effects of climate change, we need to also be considering the social implications, and specifically the configurations of colonialism and the afterlife of slavery.”

David Ụzọchukwu – Mare Monstrum — Drown in My Magic

Location: Édifice Jacques-Parizeau, underground

There’s also a playful side to Art Souterrain, and Davis has curated several works that speculate on what the future may bring. Some visions are strange, others are full of humour. And then there are eerily beautiful projects, like this one by David Ụzọchukwu, a Berlin-based photographer who’s previously collaborated with FKA Twigs and Pharrell. The images appearing at Art Souterrain are digitally altered photos from an ongoing body of work, a series set in a water world inhabited by Black men and women. The people there have grown fins and scales — and still others have morphed into humanoid corals. “You’re not quite sure what sort of temporality you’re inhabiting, whether this is the past or the present or the future,” says Davis. “It allows space for a radical imagination of how things could be different.”

Dear Climate

Location: Place Ville Marie (underground), Centre de Commerce Mondial (ground floor), Édifice Jacques-Parizeau (underground), Palais des congrès (underground)

An absurdist ad campaign for a more interconnected planet? “These posters will kind of be all over the place,” says Davis, and if you mistake them for avant-garde billboards, that’s kind of the point.

Micha cárdenas – The Probability Engine: Permafrost and Ice

Location: Place de la cité international, ground floor

An immersive installation involving augmented reality and life-sized sculptures — forms that have been 3D printed using recycled materials — this project by micha cárdenas lets you see what would happen if Canada’s boreal permafrost melted away.

Davis will be leading a guided tour of Art Souterrain on Sunday, March 17, and this installation is one of the projects she’ll be featuring during the walkthrough. At each stop along the tour, Davis will be sharing background on the artists and their selected works. The schedule of guided tours and other festival programming — including performances, public workshops and roundtable discussions — can be found on the Art Souterrain website.

Art Souterrain. March 16 to April 7. Various locations, Montreal. www.festival2024.artsouterrain.com

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