Montreal, April 30, 2024 – CIRCA art actuel is pleased to announce that the Pauline-Desautels Award is awarded to Anouk Verviers for her project Qu’est-ce qu’on peut construire sur un sol en mouvance, presented in 2023 at OPTICA (Montreal).

“Qu’est-ce qu’on peut construire sur un sol en mouvance interweaves several narratives belonging to the same story. The first is that of a ceramic bean pot given to the artist by her grandmother, which prompts a reflection on the significance of collective projects across generations. The second is that of the industrialization of butter production on the territory we call Canada, from homestead production, mostly carried out by women until the 19th century to mass production in the 20th. There is then the closely related story of commercial relations between Canada and the United Kingdom in a colonial context, the products of Canadian agriculture being rationalized for profit, thus eroding a subsistence economy. The exhibition delves into the workings of an “economic system that divides us” by traversing the layers of time and the articulations of the single history of dispossession. By interconnecting different perspectives on a rapport to the land and the relationships this generates, Verviers works through a series of tensions in which we must learn to live.”

Text excerpt from Véronique Leblanc

Please join us on Thursday, May 13th, 2024 at 5:30 pm at CIRCA art actuel for the award ceremony and to attend the artist’s presentation of her project.

The Pauline-Desautels Award is awarded annually to a committed artist whose work in sculpture or installation, relating to CIRCA’s mission, has been outstanding in the eyes of the public and the artistic community during the last three years. Pauline Desautels’ generous contribution to CIRCA has enabled the creation of this award.

Photo credit: Paul Litherland except the second one Anouk Verviers