Voyage de têtes with Sylvie Cotton

Publication launch and performance by Francys Chenier with Sylvie Cotton

March 3, 2016 - 6 PM

During the winter of 2015, artist Francys Chenier carried out a research residency at Artexte. Following the joint reading by Chenier and interdisciplinary artist Sylvie Cotton of Michel Foucault’s Le Corps utopique, the two came together in March 2015 for a performative encounter. Their aim was to make Foucault’s book travel, as they followed the path of their intuitive, particular approach to the text through the many holdings in Artexte’s collection and their own personal documents. Chenier then undertook to organize the references and parallels identified during this exchange in order to map out Cotton’s thought process as she navigated Foucault’s text. He produced a booklet containing, among others, the entire transcript of his conversation with the artist and its cartographic representation. His aim was to create a constellation of data for use at Artexte – a new research tool based on heuristically acquired knowledge. One year after this encounter, Chenier and Cotton will meet again at Artexte, to launch this publication and present a second performance.

Francys Chenier is a Montreal-based artist whose practice is located at the intersection of poetry, contextual art, conceptual art and library science. His journey began with a Bachelor’s degree in visual and media arts from the Université Laval (2006-2010), followed by an interdisciplinary Master’s degree in art from that same university (2012-2015). In 2010, he received a scholarship from Première Ovation and in 2013 was awarded a scholarship from the Fonds de recherche Société et culture (FRQSC). His work has been presented at Verticale, VIVA! Art Action, le Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Regart, Dare-Dare and Folie Culture, as well as within Est-Nord-Est’s artist residencies. He is currently working on a laboratory/residency at the artist-run centre Praxis Art Actuel. Many of his projects are also created independently and clandestinely, outside of traditional exhibition spaces.

Sylvie Cotton is an interdisciplinary artist living in Montreal. Her interests lie in the practices of performance, action art, drawing, writing and installation. In her work, Cotton explores the relationship with the other and uses performance to invest different public or private spaces. A member of various work groups and committees in the visual arts, Cotton is also an author and a curator. Her work has been presented in Quebec and throughout the world.