Explore Missing Images at the 19th Momenta Biennale

The 19th Edition of the Momenta Biennale d’art contemporain has partnered with Montreal museums, galleries, and artist-run centres to offer the public a series of exhibitions that explore the theme In Praise of the Missing Image.

An art installation titled 'The Matriarch: Unraveled Threads' featuring a cylindrical structure adorned with hanging images, displayed in a gallery setting. — Drawing from the family archives passed down by her grandmother, artist Mallory Lowe Mpoka retraces the history of her ancestors and, more broadly, that of a people marked by the violence surrounding the Cameroonian War of Independence in the 1950s and 1960s (see full description of the project here)

Presented in 11 exhibition spaces across the city, the Biennale’s programme forms a dialogue among the work of 23 Canadian and international artists, representing 14 countries, 4 provinces, and 5 Indigenous communities. One example, The Matriarch (Unravelled Threads) by Mallory Lowe Mpoka.

An artistic installation featuring hanging photographs and textured fabric strips, evoking themes of memory and identity. — From 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝 (𝙐𝙣𝙧𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙨) by 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗟𝗼𝘄𝗲 𝗠𝗽𝗼𝗸𝗮: analog photography, screen printing, photo transfer, embroidery on dyed cotton and linen with red earth pigment, acrylic, paper, wood (source)

From one exhibition to the next, artists explore hybridization, fluidity, and fugitivity to create emancipatory images that reveal marginalized or erased narratives – Momenta Montreal

This edition of the Momenta aims to open up multiple perspectives for experimentation and speculation on the nature, uses and production of missing images. The scope of exhibitions is deep and wide.

Three individuals posed creatively under a bridge, wearing elaborate costumes made from various materials, including fabric and accessories. The scene is set by a natural backdrop with a river visible in the background.

Above, for example, Rights of Passage is a drag opera presented as an immersive sound and video installation. Canadian multidisciplinary artist Lou Sheppard stages Hogweed, Turkeytail, and Algae, three hybrid figures wandering through the lost, buried, or compromised waterways of Greater Toronto.

An installation featuring various plants in glass vases, with black and white photographs of eyes placed among the foliage, and botanical sketches on the wall behind.

Another example: Since 2020, Spanish artist Paula Valero Comín’s Rosa Luxemburg Resistant Herbarium has been unfolding in different cities, adapting to each specific territory, in order to form an atlas. Valero Comín pairs local plant species, chosen for their properties, with women engaged in protecting all forms of life.

The full exhibition program is online here.

The Momenta Montreal website, here.