Fall 2024
“Despite a distance that often leads us to differentiate, or at least compare, ourselves, a certain proximity exists between the millennial experience and the revolutionary youth of the 1970s. Since 2016, my research has looked at the resurgence of countercultural motifs among Québec millennials. The goal is to observe the similarities between these two generations, which manifest in their differences and their points of contrast.
My current focus is on the artist as worker, a notion that is now dissociated from the term “cultural worker,” although originally linked to creators. In my opinion, the image of the artist was somewhat tarnished by the avant-garde of the 1970s, who claimed to be part of the working class while symbolically positioning themselves above it. I’m namely referring to American conceptual and minimalist artists, and to feminist networks such as Wages for Housework, which inspired a few attempts at unionization in the 1960s and 1970s. Needless to say, their strategies failed.
As part of my residency at Artexte, I will explore documents from the collection that pertain to artist’s working conditions and contemporary art’s associative movements in view of producing a video essay. I think it’s necessary to reverse the image of the artist in order to socially recognize artists as workers among many others. In this context, I will also look at alternative economic options for work organization, such as basic universal income and wage for life (B. Friot), which are just a few communist scenarios revamped for the 20th century.”
⎯ Fanny Latreille
Fanny Latreille was born and lives in the unceded territory known as Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang / Montréal. Her interdisciplinary practice revolves around a documentary approach to the exhibition. By presenting a subject in a variety of forms, she materializes a mental aggregation through which she tries to define the cultural meaning of the image. In general, her research-creation process is motivated by the relationship between culture, history, and politics. In this way, she has a marked interest in the cultural and social manifestations that take us beyond time.
In 2020, Latreille earned a master’s degree in visual and media arts from UQAM. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions, as well as in video screenings in Canada and in France, including: CEAAC (Strasbourg, FR), Galerie de l’UQAM (Montreal, QC), Centre des arts actuels Skol (Montreal, QC), Forest City Gallery (London, ON), and Langage Plus (2024). Her work has been recognized with the Omer De Serres (2012), Robert Wolfe (2013) and François-Xavier-Marange (2019) excellence grants, and has been supported by the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec, and the Canadian Council for the Arts.