Abstract
Feminist artist and art critic Edith Brunette fearlessly plunges her work into the path of protest. Through information technology -- recovered tapes filmed by surveillance cameras, manipulated voicemail messages, the recording of testimonies of individuals involved in conflicts during the student strike last spring -- she gives an account of the ways in which authority figures present themselves in both private and public space. In addition to learning more about her practice, considered here from a “hacktivist” perspective, this interview investigates the legal setbacks triggered by her engaged art projects, and the role of the artist as a participant in social change.
Video Descriptions : Féminisme (1m29) / Technologie (2m36) / Hacktivisme (1m48) / Revers légaux (4m35) / Collaboration (1m43) / Impact sur l'artiste (2m38) / Pratique artistique (1m24)
Interweaving artistic practice and theoretical research, the work of Edith Brunette investigates the ways in which discourses -- those conveyed by governing institutions and by the mass media, but also by their detractors and marginalized individuals -- manifest themselves. Through organized meetings and situations, she induces social actors to speak in order to stimulate reflection on our perception of the world and on methods to collectively appropriate its representations. Her projects have been presented at La Galerie de l'UQAM (Montreal) and artist-run centres such as Praxis (Sainte-Thérèse), Le lieu (Quebec City) and Skol (Montreal). Brunette is also an author and art critic. Her writings having been published in ETC, Inter, art actuel and Cassandra / Horschamp (France)
Julie Alary Lavallée is completing a B.F.A. in Studio Arts from Concordia University and is currently preparing her doctoral thesis in Art History at Université de Montréal (UdeM) on Chinese and Indian contemporary art, with a focus on the art market and museum studies. She is a teaching assistant in the Department of Art History at UdeM and is doing an internship in the archives of the artist-run centre Optica, where she is also employed as a writer. In addition, she works as a freelance writer for Art Mûr gallery, and at the Centre d’exposition of Université de Montréal as a communications & educational activities assistant. As well as presenting her academic research here and abroad, Julie Alary Lavallée has contributed to publications on contemporary art, conservation and heritage. Since 2012 she sits on the Board of Directors at Studio XX and is a member of their programming committee. Alary Lavallée won esse arts + opinions magazine’s Young Art Critic award in 2011 and is also an independent curator. She is one of the founders of Ex-Situ, a journal published by students in the Art History program of Université du Quebec à Montréal. A polyglot, she is passionate about local and global art phenomena and wishes to travel the world!