Programming

As part of Textiles Sismographes organized by the Conseil des arts textiles du Québec, DARE-DARE presents Portraits transgéographiques, an exhibition in collaboration with Dianna Frid and Karen Michelsen. Frid and Michelsen are similarly marked by their nomadic destinies, the mix of their backgrounds, the multiplication of their geographical affiliations and, above all, the variegation of their respective cultural identities, which makes Michelsen say that her notion of culture is analogous to a quilt.

The two artists proposed a series of portraits created by correspondence, in the mode of an exquisite corpse. Of these fragments of bodies that passed in transit under a stamped envelope between Vancouver, Montreal, New York and Peru, none of them saw the final resulting image before their assembly at DARE-DARE. In this context and with such a rule of the game, the metaphor of the fragmented body resonated fully with the diversity of identities, the scattered territorial ties, the histories of migration and the cultural mixtures that make up the real portrait of each of the participants. It was up to the spectator to discover the links that are woven in these curious self-portraits, assembled like a textile montage, and where, like in a quilt, the diverse, the heterogeneous and the disparate cohabit.

Textiles Sismographes - Symposium fibres and textiles 1995 is a series of events - conferences, workshops, exhibitions - through which we examine the evolution of textile arts, their migrations and their cultural appropriations. Like other artist-run centers, DARE-DARE participates in this reflection on the textile arts by focusing on artistic collaboration where traditionally distinct mediums and crafts interact.

Dianna Frid was born in Mexico City in 1967 and emigrated to Canada, to Vancouver. She recently moved to New York City where she lives and works. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Frid has exhibited in several cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Born in Peru, Karen Michelsen is now in Montreal where she lives and works. After studying in Lima and Vancouver, Michelsen graduated from Concordia University in Montreal. She has exhibited in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.