Montréal ~ Habana : Rencontres en art actuel / Encuentros de arte contemporáneo

Montréal ~ Habana : Rencontres en art actuel / Encuentros de arte contemporáneo is an exchange project aimed at the broadcasting, production and dialogues between Cuban and Montreal artists and cultural workers. The Montreal edition took place May 2019 and is now launching its edition in Havana from October 31 to December 8, 2019. This current art event brings together several exhibitions, artist residencies, video projections, thematic discussion days, networking activities, presentations by participating artists and festive meeting moments. Montreal ~ Habana is supported by eight Montreal artist centres and six Havanese partners who have teamed up to design and develop a major project aimed at deepening relations with Cuba and bringing together the artistic practices of these two countries.

Partners in Montreal: Centre CLARK, DARE-DARE, Galerie B-312, Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV),
Galerie La Centrale Powerhouse, OBORO, Perte de signal, Vidéographe
Partners in La Havane: Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Artista X Artista, Avecez Art Space,
Galería Continua, Fábrica De Arte Cubano (F.A.C), Galería El Apartamento, Cristina Figueroa

As a part of Montréal ~ Habana : Rencontres en art actuel / Encuentros de arte contemporáneo, La Centrale galerie Powerhouse and Sometimes Artspaces are proud to present the exhibition À qui de droit, curated by Solveig Font, for the second phase of the exchange project. This exhibition is presented at Sometimes Artspaces, an alternative contemporary art space in Havana. À qui de droit presents the works of Maria Ezcurra, Victoria Stanton and Helena Martin Franco linking the reality of women, everyday life and abstraction.

Maria Ezcurra, Victoria Stanton and Helena Martin Franco also participate in the collective exhibition: Montreal ~ Habana: Rencontres en art contemporain / Encuentros de arte contemporáneo at the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales under the direction of Lillebit Fadraga, Christina Figueroa Vives and Gretel Medina. Three exhibitions spread over three floors that bring together the works of Montreal artists invited by Montreal artist centers: Adam Basanta and René, Lavaillante (gallery B-312), Carl Trahan (Center Clark), Estela Lopez Solis (DARE DARE).

Maria Ezcurra is an Argentine-Mexican-Canadian artist and educator. Laureate of the Prize for Diversity in Visual Arts of the Montreal Arts Council 2019, María has participated in exhibitions in various spaces such as the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the Galerie Carl Freedman in the United Kingdom, the Nuit Blanche in Toronto , the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the La Centrale galerie Powerhouse. She has taught art at various universities and organizations in Mexico and Canada for the past 20 years. After obtaining a doctorate in arts education from Concordia University, she worked as an artist-in-residence at the Faculty of Education at McGill University, where she currently teaches. Maria is an artistic presenter at McGill Art Hive and other community groups. Her research and artistic production process focus on participatory and inclusive practices; clothing and the social construction of gender; migration, identity and belonging.

Victoria Stanton Considered a pioneer of transactional practices in Quebec, the transdisciplinarity of Victoria Stanton's practice - as an artist, researcher, curator, educator - places dialogue at the centre of her performative works. She is the co-author of two books (Impure, Reinventing the Word, conundrum press, 2001, with Vincent Tinguely; and The 7th Sense / Le 7e sens, SAGAMIE édition d'art, 2017, with the collective TouVA), and presented performances, infiltrative / relational actions, exhibitions and videos, in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Cuba. In 2018, Stanton was awarded the PRIX POWERHOUSE and, in 2020, she will begin a doctorate in research-creation as part of the Art Education program at Concordia University.

Helena Martin Franco. born in Cartagena, Colombia, lives and works in Montreal since 1998. With a master's degree in visual and media arts from the University of Quebec in Montreal, she is actively involved in the network of artist-run centres in Montreal . She is part of several visual arts dissemination collectives, including one in Quebec:L'Araignée, collectif de diffusion d'art actuel. In a gender perspective, she establishes links between these collectives and cultural organizations in order to promote the meeting and exchange of artistic practices, especially between Canada and Colombia. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the mixing of different artistic processes and the hybridization of traditional techniques and new technologies. From self-fiction, it reveals the permeability of the borders of cultural, national and gender identities through the dialogue of action, image, text. It has been presented in the Dominican Republic, Lithuania, Spain, New Zealand, Colombia, the United States, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Cuba and Canada.