From 19-23 November 2019, the EUNIC cluster in Montreal invited the public to EMERGE, one of the largest gatherings of contemporary performance art ever presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. The week-long event saw a dozen European and Canadian artists and participants presenting recent works that address the multidisciplinary direction taken by some of today’s most engaging practices
The very title of the event referred to the song Emerge by the group Fischerspooner, which questions the issues of contemporaneity, the question of being and doing in the present times.
In parallel to the packed performance programme, workshops punctuated by conferences and exchanges took place during the week. On the last day, a forum brought together the public, artists, curators, art critics, and theorists from Canada and abroad. The Forum was an opportunity for all participants to share thoughts on current events and performance issues, and was documented in a five-episode podcast analysing the role of performance genre within the arts and the recent trends that are emerging both in form (at the crossroads of the performing arts, writing and image) and in content. The podcast can be accessed both in French and English here.
EMERGE was a great success in presenting a range of diverse artistic approaches to a large audience, as well as in providing a platform for artists, curators and academics from Europe and Canada to exchange about current tendencies and the politics of performance art. Only by initiating the project as the EUNIC cluster, and by working together with other European and local partners, we were able to present such a singular, large scale event”, says Katja Melzer, Director of the Goethe-Institut Montreal. EMERGE was a co-production of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Goethe-Institut Montreal, the Consulat-Général de France à Québec and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Montreal as members of the EUNIC cluster in Montréal, with the Embassy of Spain in Ottawa. The project received generous support from the Franco-German Fund, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Consulate-General of Switzerland and the Royal Norwegian Embassy.
Invited artists
Daina Ashbee (Québec), Uriel Barthélémi and Entissar Al Hamdany (France), Marie-Caroline Hominal (Suisse), Dana Michel (Québec), Didier Morelli (Québec), Bridget Moser (Canada), PPKK – Sarah Ancelle Schoenfeld and Louis-Philippe Scoufaras (Germany), Marthe Ramm Fortun (Norway), María Salgado (Spain), Marinella Senatore (Italy), Marthe Ramm Fortun (Norway).
Invited speakers
Anne Bénichou (Québec), Christian Jankowski (Germany), Alice Ming Wai Jim (Québec), Julie Perrin (France), Ronald Rose-Antoinette (Québec), Alexandre St-Onge (Québec), David Zerbib (France)
