Stéphanie Morissette
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Birds of Prey, Exhibition view, Galerie Jano, Montréal, December 4, 2024 - January 19 2025. Photos: Mike Patten. The book: Birds of Prey is inspired by the book  Birds of America by J.J. Audubon. The illustrations here presents drones with birds behavior occupying the future sky .

Birds of Prey  |  What The Future Leaves Behind, exhibition view, Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI.  March 15- April 13, 2024.
Photo credit: Ben Zink.

Mutations can occur naturally and create unexpected results. This exhibition uses dark speculative paleontology to imagine a future branch in the tree of life–one where biological specimens and man-made machinery have merged into a new, hybrid species. This work is made from the perspective of a far-future paleontologist who has discovered the remains of these creatures–part bird, part drone–and must untangle the troubling legacy of militarism and genetic engineering in our current time.


Once Upon A Time In the Far Future, 2024, puppet book performance, 17 minutes. Photo credit: Krista Sheneman
Video link.

In a speculative art world, where synthetic biologists have made a synthetic life possible. The puppet performance takes us into a journey through future moments in time from the found remnants of the hybrid objects/species, going backwards until their origin in a laboratory.

This story includes eight pages or chapters, each offering a different perspective on a moment in time. It starts from a far future point of view, with the silhouette of a paleo mystic biologist astronaut who finds remnants in the soil and reflects on her findings. Then the climate accompanied by spectrograph video images speaks about his temper. In the third page, we hear multiple grains of sand talking about what they were (a bunker or a skyscraper); followed by bones trying to remember who they were. The fifth chapter takes the voices of objects/species deployed in nature who now have their own agency. The sixth chapter presents war generals deploying insects as bio weapons. Following the generals, tired animals in the lab talk about their treatment and how they are poked at constantly. The final page presents a white pristine lab with no windows where a scientist is confident about the benefits of his research. 

During the performance, Conner Singh Vander Beek played the gamelan to create a sound atmosphere. Abigail Lowe and Leah Crosby narrated the story and performed the characters. Stéphanie Morissette manipulated the book. Once the book is closed, lights go down and sounds of birds can be heard as if we had reached the era before bio manipulation. Filmed and performed at the Duderstadt video studio, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dialogue, 2023, paper installation inside a studio, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
What if vegetation or animal fur/feathers was colonizing human spaces?

Recent work, 2022-2023. Photo credit: Ben Zink.
Drone/Birds series and Bio-Military objects series.

Black Lake, 2020-2023, 12 minutes experimental documentary and photos. The point of view of nature on this transformed territory with testimonies of people who remembers the lake. The Black Lake is located in the unceded territory of w8banaki Nation, the Ndakinna, in a city now known as Thetford Mines, Québec, Canada.

Film 1 min preview: https://vimeo.com/895918492

Image & video sources: Stéphanie Morissette, Pierre-Jean Moreau and Centre d'archives de la région de Thetford.
Director: Stéphanie Morissette; Drone images: Pierre-Jean Moreau; Sound & mix audio: Dale Einarson; Counter bass: Benoît Converset; Piano: Roland Favre.
Photos: Printed on Somerset paper, 81.5 x 112 cm (33.5 x 44 inches).
Audio testimonies: Louise Landry, Pauline Laflamme, Sarto Morissette, Réjeanne Laflamme, Michel Morissette.
The artist aknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts for this project and wishes to thank Granilake for their collaboration.

This exhibition was presented from June 8th to October 7 2024 at the Centre historique de la mine King KB3 au Minéro Musée de Thetford:
https://museeminero.com/expositions/lacnoir/
and was presented at Espace Virtuel with the Bang Centre in Saguenay, Qc. February 29 - April 27 2024.
Picture

Epigenetics of Mechanical Objects, 2020, a web dendrogram like a phylogenetic tree. In a near future, animal and plant species are imagined to have crossed their genes with technologies. This diagram made of drawings representing those crossed specimens, is accompanied by a text where a scientist from the future studies this evolution from 2019 to 2092.   dendrogramme.stephaniemorissette.com
Project made in collaboration with the Hub numérique de l'Estrie, the author Pattie O'Green and The Canada Council for the Arts.


Meanders, 2020, VR interactive and immersive art work, 5-8 minutes.
 A virtual reality experience inside the artist brain's connections.
A collaboration with Sporobole art center and Imeka, a company specialized in brain imaging, with the financial support of the CALQ and the city of Sherbrooke. Presented September 4-26, 2020 at Sporobole art center; and at TOPO from January to March 2021 in a web version; La Bande Vidéo, Québec city, May 21 to June 18 2023; at Particles + Waves, EMMEDIA festival, Calgary February 28-March 22, 2025; CURRENTS New Media Festival, Santa Fe, NM, US, June13-22, 2025. Video with image of the VR experience Meanders.
 

This work was finalist at the NUMIX Prize 2021 in Montréal.
Presently on STEAM.


Horizons, 2019, aluminum, 3 x 11 metres, Public artwork, Mont Orford ski station, Québec, Canada.


 Transmutations, exhibition Galerie 3C, LaSalle (Montreal), March 16-April 13, 2019.
 This work was made with the collaboration of the brain imaging company Imeka, and the financial support of the CALQ and the City of Sherbrooke (photo credit: Guy L'Heureux). 


The Curious Colonial Empires, Galerie Dominique Bouffard, Montréal, November 16- December 23, 2017.
(photos Guy L'heureux).


Shadows in a Labyrinth, 2017, video 7 minutes 40 seconds.
Shadows in a Labyrinth reflects on the complexity, the flaws & ephemeral aspects of our brain and memory, as well as on the medium and technologies. We draw parallels with mental illness and disease like Alzheimer. This video was produced in collaboration with the brain imaging company Imeka, as well with the financial support of the CALQ and the City of Sherbrooke.


Réminiscence (2017, 13 min.) et Le rythme de la mémoire collective (2016, 8 min. 35 sec.) Video animations projected on the heritage house Maison Girardin, Beauport, Québec.


 Troubled Forest, exhibition presented at Galerie Dominique Bouffard, Montréal, September 3-27, 2015.
(photos Guy L'Heureux).


Dans la proximité des ombres, Galerie Dominique Bouffard, Montréal February 7- March3, 2013. Cold War works.
(photos JPLacroix).

Empty?,  photos & video installation, exhibited at: Maison de la culture Frontenac, Montréal ( 2009); Panache Art Actuel, Baie Comeau & Havre Saint-Pierre (2013); Voix Visuelle, Ottawa, (2014). (photos JPLacroix).

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