Anne Bérubé, Victoria Stanton and Sylvie Tourangeau @ Artexte

October 2008 - April 2009

The research residency programme at Artexte is hosting Anne Bérubé, Victoria Stanton and Sylvie Tourangeau. The three artists-researchers from Montreal will start their stay during the fall of 2008. Their goal is to re-examine the discourses around performance art, to identify how the performative process is articulated today, and to investigate for existing links with critical and theoretical references. Their research aims to synthesize discursive fields of performance art, thereby contributing to its study and practice.

The three artists-researchers began this line of enquiry in October 2007, when they conducted two intensive workshops with twenty performance artists active in the Quebec scene. This allowed them to question a number of notions present in the performance field, and to identify perspectives for further investigation. Following their residency, the researchers will publish a reference book on the subject.

Educated in arts and literature, Anne Bérubé has worked both as researcher and artist. She has participated in symposia as moderator and speaker, and published a number of texts about artists for exhibition catalogues. In 1997, Bérubé co-edited with Sylvie Cotton an important book on installation art. For more than ten years, she has integrated performative aspects to her teaching of literature at the college level.

Victoria Stanton is a performance artist, video-maker, photographer and writer of fiction, poetry, critical texts, and songs. Her time-based work includes sound on stage, group actions in public spaces, one-on-one encounters to “consult,” interview or feed. She appropriates and disrupts the everyday through acts of spontaneous intimacy, and in dealing with vulnerability. Some of her performance work has been transformed into photo-installations or single-channel videos. Performance writing and other critical texts have appeared in several publications. Stanton is also the CEO of the Bank of Victoria.

Active in performance art since 1978, Sylvie Tourangeau is interested in deploying performative consciousness through small actions that intensify the quality of “presence”, while embodying links with the audience. Performance, relational art, circumstantial rituals and explorative workshops form the basis of her practice and involvement in the arts.