Laure Prouvost: Oma-je • FONDATION PHI • November 1, 2024 → March 9, 2025

FRANÇAIS app de traduction à gauche

Laure Prouvost

Laure Prouvost's Oma-je, currently on display at the Phi Foundation in Montreal, marks a significant chapter in the French artist's evolving exploration of memory, identity, and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge. Building on the rich legacy of experimental video art, Prouvost's exhibition immerses visitors in a poetic, surreal world where language, personal history, and collective memory intersect. The exhibition, which builds upon a 2023 iteration at Remai Modern, Saskatoon, is an expansive installation that stretches across seven galleries, creating a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that demands active engagement from its audience.

Prouvost’s practice is renowned for its playful, often disorienting use of language and narrative structures, creating works that seem at once absurd and profound. In Oma-je, the artist's signature blend of whimsy, memory, and the bizarre is infused with a deep reverence for the maternal, the ancestral, and the forgotten histories of women. The title itself, Oma-je(a play on "Oma," the German and Dutch word for grandmother, and "je," the French pronoun for "I"), encapsulates the exhibition’s central preoccupation with the shifting dynamics of familial and generational relationships. Prouvost looks not only at the relationships between mothers and daughters, but also at the more elusive connections between grandmothers and their descendants — both biological and chosen. Through this lens, Oma-je reimagines the act of "grandmothering" as an ongoing process of care, mentorship, and shared wisdom.

Detail Here Her Heart Hovers (2023)

At the heart of this installation is Here Her Heart Hovers (2023), an immersive environment that pulls the viewer into a complex web of memory, history, and fiction. With a constellation of films that float ethereally within the space, Here Her Heart Hovers invites visitors into a dream-like world where grandmothers are both mythic and intimate figures, figures of empowerment, artistic inspiration, and spiritual guidance. Central to this installation is You, My, Omma, Mama (2023), where a group of women call out to their grandmothers, using a range of terms from "oma" to "yaya," evoking the multiplicity of experiences and identities embedded in the figure of the grandmother. This narrative is carried through in Shadow Does (2023) and A Walking Story (2023), where the bonds between these women and their foremothers are solidified through collective storytelling and the exchange of memory objects, creating a rich tapestry of past and present.

Prouvost’s use of materials in this installation is as vital as its narrative. Glass objects, found artifacts, and beautifully crafted sculptures act as tangible manifestations of memory. These objects — gathered like characters around a campfire — speak to the idea of memory as both fragile and resilient, as something to be shared and passed down. The installation’s centerpiece is an evocative fire, a symbol of the warmth and transformation that comes from familial connection and the stories that bind generations together. The soundscape, composed by Elisabeth Schimana, adds a further layer of depth, with the music flowing through the space like an incantation, blending electronic soundscapes with the reverberations of ancestral voices.

Aileen Burns & Cheryl Sims, curators of the exhibition

In many ways, Prouvost's work can be read as a meditation on inheritance, not just in the genetic or material sense, but in the transmission of stories, traditions, and knowledge. This notion of inheritance is explored through the lens of female lineage, where the idea of "grandmothering" transcends biological ties to become a verb — a practice of nurturing, guiding, and teaching. The references to historical and artistic foremothers, such as Louise Bourgeois, Joan Jonas, and Hilma af Klint, further deepen this engagement with feminist histories, underscoring Prouvost’s reverence for those who have paved the way for artistic and social progress.

Ultimately, Oma-je is a celebration of the multiplicity of voices and histories that shape our understanding of self and community. The fragmented, nonlinear nature of the exhibition mirrors the complex and often contradictory ways in which we construct and remember our personal histories. By engaging with the voices of women, both real and imagined, Prouvost invites us into a space where the boundaries between past and present, reality and fiction, are not only blurred but celebrated. This is an exhibition that demands reflection, participation, and an openness to the often surreal, deeply personal ways in which we understand our connections to those who came before us.

November 6, 2024 → March 9, 2025 My-Van Dam: Spaces of Resonance

My-Van Dam

As part of the public engagement project Spaces of Resonance, the PHI Foundation and artist My-Van Dam invite the public to participate in two interactive workshops focused on somatic practices. My-Van Dam, a multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, will guide participants in exploring the connection between body and material through movement and touch, using Objects of Solidarity designed specifically for this project. These objects—part of Dam’s broader exploration of body memory and intergenerational trauma—serve as both sculptural forms and tools for collective healing.

Throughout the workshops, participants will be encouraged to engage with these objects in innovative ways, discovering new uses for them and relating them to their own physical experiences. The workshops emphasize inclusivity and accessibility, requiring no prior experience in dance or performance. Accompanied by a performer, Dam will facilitate an environment where participants can explore and express their personal and collective connections to the objects through somatic practices.

Spaces of Resonance will take place in the PHI Foundation’s Education Room from November 6, 2024, to March 9, 2025, and is open to the general public on weekends. The project will culminate in a performance in March 2025, weaving together the objects, the participants’ creations, and Dam’s research into a collective exploration of body, memory, and solidarity.

January 18 and February 8 My-Van Dam: Spaces of Resonance – Somatic Workshops

INFORMATION

LENA GHIO   

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Photos © LENA GHIO 2024