The Reading Club — 5th edition

Léa Alain-Gendreau

Léa Alain-Gendreau majored in communications and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History. She is currently a pursuing her Master’s degree in Museology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Spe-cializing in contemporary art, her master’s thesis looks at infiltration-based art practices through an examination of artist-run centres. She seeks to present the active role played by these institutions within social and cultural realms.

Jacinthe Blanchard-Pilon

Jacinthe Blanchard-Pilon was the coordinator of the 30th anniversary activities for Verticale – centre d’artistes, which celebrated this milestone on April 30, 2018. She holds a BA in Art History (UQAM), and her interests include identity issues, the notion of myth and the distortions that are implicit within its historical discourse. She has several years of experience in coordination and research, in-cluding co-organising the first inter-university conference of the Association des cycles supérieurs en histoire de l’art de l’UQAM in 2015, and as research associate in the Laboratoire d’histoire et de pat-rimoine de Montréal, of UQAM and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationale du Québec, in 2016.

Maggy Flynn

Maggy Flynn imagines creative systems that enable interesting encounters. Motivated by a need to subvert everyday routines, she creates improbable experiences that combine play with awareness-raising. Her projects take shape through various mediums and processes such as drawing, video, writing, action art, participatory projects, and interventions within public space.
Since 2008, she has presented her art actions in community- and citizen-based contexts (in Montre-al’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Centre-Sud neighborhoods, in Ontario, the US, France and Ireland), and as part of art events in Quebec, namely with Dare-Dare, Skol, Les Escales Improbables, L’ATSA, L’orchestre d’hommes-orchestres, and the Péristyle nomade. Her practice also includes performanc-es, collaborative projects, and group exhibitions.

Radhanath Gagnon

For the past fifteen years, Radhanath Gagnon has worked in audio-visual media and in cinema. He is currently a PhD candidate in the joint doctoral program in communications at UQAM, a member of Hexagram, and with UQAM’s laboratoire documentaire (Lab-doc).
Gagnon has initiated many director’s groups, such as Kino 640, Kino Dakar, and Art Partage, with whom he develops annual film-based projects like the Festival du Cinéma de Lanaudière, Cinéma Politica Mascouche and La Course Lanaudière.
Part of his research looks at artists’ associations that mobilize around alternative proposals to current forms of audiovisual creation, from small-budget independent cinema, to collective projects, by way of temporary laboratories and multiple improvised creative cinematic techniques.

Émilie Granjon

Émilie Granjon holds a Diploma in Cultural Organisation Management (2015, HEC) and has been the director of CIRCA art actuel since 2016. She is also a researcher in visual semiology, essayist, art crit-ic, and independent curator. Her thesis in semiology (2008, UQAM) examined issues in contempo-rary art through an analysis of some of its unusual figures. Under the aegis of ARPRIM, she co-curated with Lysette Yosselevitz, in 2014, the group show L’art imprimé: entre mixite et hybridité in Mexico. In 2016, she organized the group exhibition Espace imprimé, espace ouvert, for the 50th anniversary of Atelier Graff in Montreal. Last year, she curated Déjouer les sens – la fonderie d’art actuel dans tous ses états at the Centre d’art Jacques et Michel Auger in Victoriaville.

Marie-Ève Leclerc-Parker

Marie-Ève Leclerc-Parker is a cultural worker and writer. She holds a MA in Art History from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her research looks at artist residencies with the Québec network of artist-run centres, and more specifically, on their resistance to strict definition. Over the past few years, she has worked at Aprim, centre d’essai en art imprimé, and has been a member of the Re-groupement d’organismes culturels et d’artistes lavallois (ROCAL), while also being involved in or-ganizing the Rencontre inter-universitaire de performance actuelle (RIPA). She is currently pro-gramming assistant at the Salle Alfred-Pellan at the Maison des arts de Laval.

Sarah Ève Tousignant

Sarah Ève Tousignant works in the visual and digital art milieu. She is currently the communications coordinator at OBORO artist-run centre. Since 2013, she has coordinated several international media art events for Molior and the Festival Elektra, and has worked for the Biennale international d’art numérique as coordinator (2014-2016). She was the co-curator of Nord Performance at Espace cer-cle carré in 2012. She is also a graduate of Concordia University’s MA in Art History program. Her recent research explores the spiritual nature of technology within media art works.