Montreal Cultural Calendar

As part of the Unstable Ecologies exhibition at Ada X, this conference extends the questions raised by the installations on view. The works explore environments in which the living is no longer represented but presented in vivo, as a system. Through dispositifs combining sensors, microclimates, microbiomes, and computational environments, they question what it means today to work with the living rather than on it. At a time when contemporary landscapes bear the traces of past industrial activities while being saturated with technological promises of repair, a tension emerges. We inherit contaminated soils, fragile ecosystems, unstable systems — and simultaneously imaginaries of enhancement, automated regeneration, and computational solutions.

Musician and sculpture Kafé Betian comes from a lineage of Saamaka sculptors from western French Guiana and will present his traditional sculptural practice, "Tembé," an art form originating in his native Suriname and which he now practices in French Guiana. This talk is part of a series of talks by artists and designers presented by Bois Magique and is presented in collaboration with the SKOL Center for Contemporary Arts.