CURRENT EVENTS

From February 8 to March 14, 2024, the Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle will host the exhibition Sentient Creature by Christine (cricri) Bellerose.

The opening of the exhibit scheduled for Thursday, February 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. will include a short movement performance art presentation by the artist at 6 p.m.

Sentient Creature is a complex project that is anchored in the creation of living tableaux and somatic practice – a holistic tradition of mindful breathing. The artist, Christine (cricri) Bellerose, calls this form of movement performance art, “ecoperformance somadance”. She works through an ecosensitive movement performative approach, the somadance technique, and the manipulation of textiles.

The exhibition presents snippets of ecoperformances carried out in the American Southwest desert high plateaus in winter 2022-2023 and on the Atlantic East Coast, in June 2023. The multimedia installation project includes one short experimental film, a series of self-portraits by the artist as well as two prints from her collaboration with American photographer Sarah West. It will also include a performative movement art portion, which will take place at the heart of the gallery in two stages: The first of short duration, during the opening (February 8), and the second of long duration, at the end of the exhibition, from 11 a.m. (March 14).

The Sentient Creature series explores the soul of a place through time. At the same time the artist inhabits and is inhabited by the layers of animist stories of the ‘’already there’’. These stories are carried through by the wind and feature the cactus sprouts, the clouds, the morning moon, and the mist of Herring Cove. From embodied stories in movement and textile manipulation emerge living sculptures bringing together woman and earth. Metamorphosis, archetypal imagination, and ecosensitivity are processes and values ​​unfolded during the weaving with the somatic intelligence of places.

Christine Bellerose known as cricri is an artist-researcher in ecosensitive knowledge systems. Originally from Montreal, she now resides in the National Capital Region (Canada). It was during an 8-year stay in China and Vietnam that she migrated from the practice of performing arts to movement performance art. On her return, she continues the ecosensitive exploration of the female body with cold, wind and water encounters which she documents through video. Her narrative images and theoretical writings circulate in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In 2021, she received her doctorate from York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design. Christine also works to broaden the scope of ecosomatic thinking and the integration of neurodiversity within the government administrative body.

Le Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, the City of Ottawa, AGAVF, Marcil Lavallée and Desjardins Ontario for their support.

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