Montreal, April 25 2025. CIRCA art actuel is pleased to announce that the Pauline-Desautels Award is awarded to Heidi Barkun for her project Mère à tout prix, a corpus of three works presented in the exhibition Les engendrements at the Galerie de l’Université de Montréal in 2024.

The Prix Pauline-Desautels is awarded annually to a committed artist whose work in sculpture or installation, in keeping with CIRCA’s mission, has stood out in the eyes of the public and the artistic community as a whole over the past three years. The creation of this award was made possible by the generous contribution of Pauline Desautels.

Mère à tout prix : oeuvres finales is a corpus of three artworks – Their Words, Their Artefacts, 12 million – about the experience of abuse in assisted reproductive technologies (ART). These works were created as part of a three-year residency at the McConnell-Université de Montréal Chair in Research-Creation on the Reappropriation of Maternity. Their Words, a site-oriented installation that occupied the gallery’s small room, references a feminist fertility clinic. Using text and textiles, the work brings to life the names and words of the 23 participants in the Mère à tout prix project. On the outside wall of the small room (inside the main room) is Their Artefacts, a series of 26 digital prints of artefacts and embossed quotes from 10 participants in the project. The sculpture (diptych) 12 million, created with test tubes, needles and bells jars from Université de Montréal laboratories, was presented in the middle of the main room.

Please join us on Satudray, May 24 at 2 pm at CIRCA art actuel for the award ceremony and to attend the artist’s presentation of her project. Considering the artist’s medical conditions, we invite you to wear a mask during the meeting. CIRCA art actuel will also provide some.

Photo credit: Paul Litherland