Underground Art in Montreal: if humanity started from scratch…

Text by: Sébastien Jédor Follow

Installing contemporary art where you don't expect it is the challenge of the Art Souterrain festival, which runs until March 22 in Montreal, Canada. Sixty international artists are deployed in the maze of the underground city, on the theme "Reset": if you could start from scratch, how would you imagine the world?

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From our special correspondent in Montreal,

In the open air, snow squalls sweep the streets of Montreal and the thermometer reads - 5 ° C. But in the basement, throughout the 6 kilometers of the underground city network, warm, passers-by linger in front of photos, sculptures, installations of contemporary art, like that of the French duo Les Nivaux: a gigantic red and yellow "stop" button, installed in the basement of the Palais des Congrès de Montréal.

" This is an emergency stop button, which is generally found on machine tools to stop everything when they get carried away," explains Thierry Nivaux. We have put it on a much larger scale to meet the challenges of the planet today. "

"Stop the runaway"

Pascale Nivaux, the other half of the duo, completes: “ For us, that means stopping the runaway of the planet, in terms of ecology, politics… There is something that we can no longer stop ! On the Nivaux emergency stop button, the keyword #stopurgence invites the public to express themselves on the subject on social networks.

Because for Juliette Bibasse, one of the four curators of the “Reset” exhibition, the challenge is to capture the attention of the public in these underground galleries built in the 1960s, some being very busy, others more deserted…

Interest those who do not go to the museum

" It's difficult, but it's also a real chance to find locals in their daily lives, people who don't necessarily go to the museum," says this independent producer based in Brussels, Belgium. You have to interest passers-by without necessarily offering monumental or flashy works ” adds Juliette Bibasse, specifying that in the basement, " the works coexist with advertising, restaurants, shops, etc. "

By its intriguing location and its daring choices, the Art Souterrain festival is a unique initiative to date. Its organizers would like to be able to export it elsewhere in the world.

Juliette Bibasse, one of the curators, in front of the work of Marjolin Dijkman, 3D print reproduction of the first known flint. RFI / Sébastien Jédor

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