A New Residency Program for Young Visual and Media Artists

Collaborating with an institution such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts represents an incredible opportunity for up-and-coming artists. But it’s equally stimulating for a museum to be able to welcome and encourage young people who aspire to play an active part in tomorrow’s art and culture scene. With this in mind, a new residency program was established at the MMFA on the initiative of PRISM, its digital mediation innovation lab.

Since its creation in April 2019, PRISM has mobilized a variety of players in the museum community who are interested in exploring digital mediation. This lab’s research and co-creation activities have led to the conception of new digital tools and experiences for museums. Being both a place for reflection and a catalyst for collaboration, PRISM seemed the ideal forum for developing and hosting an artist residency in digital creation.

An “all-inclusive” residency

The primary aim of the program is to provide young artists with resources that would make it easier for them to break into the art world, in particular by giving them the opportunity to meet key players in the artistic community. In the 12-week residency, they had access to a space for creation and technological equipment, as well as personalized support from one of the Museum’s mediators in order to help them produce a body of digital works that dialogue with the collections.

“A residency like this is an excellent opportunity for up-and-coming artists to gain access to the MMFA and its collections, which constitute a wellspring of resources, knowledge and wonderment. It allows them to learn more about the work of great artists, discover their approaches and get inspired by them. What’s more, the residency helps the artists gain an understanding of the magnitude of a structure like that of the Museum,” explains Geneviève Godin, a mediator at the MMFA and herself a multidisciplinary artist, who assisted the winners in their creative process for two hours a week.

According to Geneviève, who explores notions of collaboration and co-creation in her own practice and research, guiding these young people requires not only the ability to listen, but above all the ability to channel their creative impulses. The idea is to help them give shape to their intuitions by inviting them to draw inspiration from other artists whose work is on display at the MMFA, and by encouraging them to explore other techniques and means of expression. “I talk to them in the same way I talk to experienced fellow artists. We exchange ideas and knowledge about creation in a spirit of enrichment and openness that feeds our artistic production,” she adds.

In addition to benefiting from support and guidance right from their very first day at the Museum, the winners had the opportunity to attend a workshop on visual arts grant programs, receive assistance in preparing their presentation letter and portfolio, obtain invaluable advice from an MMFA curator, and take part in a photo shoot.

An excellent slate of candidates

The call for applications was sent out in December 2022 to numerous Museum contacts in the education community. A selection committee was then established, made up of six people with a wide range of expertise and backgrounds, including Alexandrine Théorêt, Assistant Curator of International Modern and Contemporary Art at the MMFA. “We were pleasantly surprised by the quality and depth of the applications,” she says. “The artists who applied are still in CEGEP or beginning their university studies. These young people, who are just starting out on their artistic path, submitted stimulating and extremely diverse projects, which made it difficult for us to choose between them.”

Among the many applications received, it was the artistic approaches of Neltje Green, a student at Concordia University, and Rowan Draper, who is graduating from CEGEP this year, that caught the selection committee’s eye. According to Geneviève, “Neltje and Rowan stood out for the quality of the concepts they explored, the visual language they proposed and their strong desire to come and work at the Museum; their ambition was palpable.” In addition, the complementary approaches of the two young artists held the promise of a fruitful collaboration during the residency.

Rowan’s audiovisual works, created from film material shot in everyday public spaces, highlight the different ways in which living things interrelate. The artist integrates the images he films into digital compositions that plunge the audience into an immersive aesthetic experience. For the installation conceived during his residency at the Museum, he drew inspiration from the works Reliquary by Christian Boltanski and La Edad de Oro [The Golden Age] by Meira Marrero, Patricia Clark and José Ángel Toirac.

For her part, Neltje is interested in the architectural dimension of art. She explores the effect of light and colour on the memory and emotions of viewers. Her works, which often include doors, corridors or windows, strive to highlight the space occupied by the unknown in our lives. The artist is presenting a series of inkjet prints as well as a new digital work at the MMFA.

To find out more about this pilot residency project and see the end result of these artists’ explorations, come and meet Neltje and Rowan in the creative space of the PRISM lab, located on Level S2 of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace. The artists will be on hand to welcome you and discuss their work on the following dates:

• Wednesday, June 14 to Saturday, June 17, from 1 to 5 p.m.
• Wednesday, June 21 to Saturday, June 24, from 1 to 5 p.m.

PRISM is funded by the Government of Quebec as part of the implementation of measure 115 of Quebec’s Plan culturel numérique.