An alternative exhibition space, in collaboration with the Université de l’Ontario français
Location: UOF, 9 Lower Jarvis Street, Toronto
Partner: Carrefour des savoirs et de l’innovation
Founded by Ontario government through The Francophone Community Grants Program ( FCGP ) and Canada Council for the Arts.
From November 2024 to March 2025, discover the works of Tania Love and Noémie Roy presented consecutively on the grounds of the Université de l’Ontario français, a project curated by Mathilde Rousseau. The En vitrine project was created to promote the practices of Labo artists and to encourage the sharing of expertise between the arts and the French-speaking university community. The thought-provoking and participatory works will be accompanied by mediation projects developed by two interns from the UOf’s specialized bachelor’s program in digital culture studies, Stéphanie Salgo and Steve Kawe. These contributions will enable students to put their learning into practice in an experiential context, using different technologies to promote cultural mediation.
TANIA LOVE: Morphogenesis I
with a contribution of Stéphanie Salgo
November 07 – December 11, 2024
NOÉMIE ROY: L’Épingle filante
with a contribution of Steve Kawe
February 13 – March 19, 2025
Le Labo window, installed on the first floor of the UOf, becomes a showcase for the artistic project Résistances silencieuses, protecting and celebrating an impalpable notion: intimacy.
How can we care for our intimate spaces? How can we re-enchant them?
Faced with an increasingly hostile world, and societies where violence, growth and appropriation dictate the rules, we propose a form of resistance based on gentleness, slowness and sobriety. It’s a question of overturning dominant perspectives by highlighting care and delicacy, often associated with the feminine and scorned in a patriarchal society that values strength and domination, in order to claim them as universal values.
The window thus becomes a protective, comforting case, revealing two highly intimate projects, two women’s voices, whispering in our ears bodily and spiritual tales imbued with great sensitivity.
Visual artist Tania Love invites us to contemplation and slowness with Morphogenesis I, a work made from natural materials and influenced by arte povera. Large reddish leaves devoured by an invasive species offer us a striking vision combining beauty and tragedy. Echoing the human body – our own, or the artist’s – a network of veins, lungs and arteries seems to take shape.
Noémie Roy’s exhibition is inspired by her poetry collection L’épingle filante, where the writer reveals a certain aspect of the intimate: a form of resistance that is experienced within oneself, within the family, and in one’s own body, involving the practice of care—motherhood. Continuing this reflection, the artist explored the world of carded wool and organza to create a textile artwork: a wool garden oscillating between abstraction and figuration. This space, both vegetal and biological, is made up of repetitive patterns evoking the aggregation of cells and transformation.
The Digital Mediation Work of the UOF Students
Reflections on the Mediation Process by Stéphanie Salgo Around Tania Love’s Work, Morphogenesis I:
From my very first exchanges with Tania Love, I was captivated by the tactile dimension of her artistic work. This led me to reexamine our relationship to touch, especially in a digital context. Touch, initially perceived as one of the five senses, also plays a role in so-called « digital » technologies, a term that refers to the use of fingers. I found it fascinating to explore this digital dimension of touch on screens, particularly those of mobile phones. After all, smartphones also hold private, even intimate, data and details. They shape our connections with loved ones and enable personal, emotionally impactful experiences.
In this context, working with augmented reality on mobile phones naturally emerged as a fitting choice. This mediation project aims to reflect on the dynamic relationships between bodies and natural environments. To achieve this, the project experience is facilitated through the Adobe Aero augmented reality mobile app. The mediation project is accessible via a QR code placed on the artist’s window display. Scanning the QR code leads to downloading the Adobe Aero app, which is freely available for both iPhones and Android devices. Once the app is downloaded, the QR code must be scanned again to access the mediation artwork.
This augmented reality piece invites users to situate their bodies in relation to a digitized leaf taken from the artist’s work on display. Once the Adobe Aero app is downloaded and the QR code scanned again, the leaf will appear as an element to place on a horizontal surface using the phone’s camera. When positioned on the chosen spot on the ground, the leaf will begin to animate with pulsations resembling a heartbeat. Moving closer to the leaf will also trigger audio.
The soundscape accompanying the leaf’s pulsations features recordings captured by the sound design collective Sonoquilibrium from the interior of tree trunks. This soundscape invites reflection and questioning: do the insides of trees make noise? Yes, as the flow of sap through a tree is analogous to the flow of blood in human bodies.
The digitized and animated leaf on the screen enhances the experience of connecting with the artist’s work. It specifically invites participants to feel the poetic links between the veins of the artist’s leaves, on a human scale, and our own.
While it is recommended to activate the experience in front of the window display at the UOf, it can also be deployed in other contexts and locations. Additionally, it is possible to photograph the augmented reality experience using a capture button overlaid on the scene.
Text by Stéphanie Salgo – Website of the Center for Studies and Research in Digital Cultures at the UOF
Reflections on the Mediation Process by Steve Kawe Around Noémie Roy’s Work, L’épingle filante:
This project is part of the En vitrine 2 program at Le Labo, a space designed to highlight contemporary and experimental Francophone artistic practices in Toronto. As the digital mediator for the project, I was driven by a desire for immersive and cross-disciplinary mediation, aiming to offer a deep connection between the work of artist Noémie Roy and the public. Aligning with the artist’s approach, which merges literature and visual arts, I sought, through my mediation, to subtly integrate the digital interaction component to ‘enhance’ the unique, sensory, and participatory experience of the artist’s work.
At the heart of this initiative is an innovative rereading of Noémie Roy’s collection L’ÉPINGLE filante, brought to life through an interactive installation on the ground floor of the Université de l’Ontario français. Her setup invited me to dive into a universe where words, textile material, and themes of care and transmission intertwine to offer a sensitive and engaging interpretation. This new form of art prioritizes direct and tangible interaction with the work, fostering a unique exploration and personal resonance between the mediator, the visitor, and the created content.
My mediation setup is a cross-disciplinary approach combining lexical analysis, poetic visualization, and digital interactivity. It invites the public to explore the work through a sensory and participatory lens. Specifically, the installation is based on a mapping of key words, translated into a dynamic visualization where text and image intertwine to create a fluid and intuitive reading space. This digital mediation aims to redefine the relationship between the public, the artist, and artistic creation. By making the immateriality of poetry tangible and integrating a strong participatory dimension, the setup strives to transcend traditional exhibition frameworks toward the sensory. The mediation setup transforms each visitor’s role, not as a passive observer, but as an active participant, invited to appropriate the work through their own perceptions and feelings.
Steve Kawe, (Re)naissance
Click here to access the entire setup created by Steve.
About the artists and the curator
© Pascaline Le Bras (middle photo) and Katya Konioukhava (right photo)
Mathilde Rousseau
Mathilde Rousseau is an emerging curator and cultural worker based in Toronto. She studied art history at the École du Louvre in Paris, then cultural mediation. Through her work, she is committed to promoting the inclusion of all audiences and combating elitism in the art world. She also explores new avenues of resistance to the excesses of our post-modern societies, oppressive and ecocidal systems, advocating slowing down, gentleness and care.
Tania Love
Tania Love is a visual artist working and living in Toronto. Her work is inspired by a relationship with the place in which it unfolds, and a connection with nature. She favors process, slowness and sensoriality, while employing a range of natural materials. She has received numerous grants and residencies, and has exhibited in Canada and abroad.
Noémie Roy
Noémie Roy is an author, multidisciplinary artist and teacher. She has contributed to some issues of Exit and Zinc magazines. In 2021, she published her first poetry collection, Parmi celles qui flambent (Les Herbes rouges). Born in Quebec, she moved to Oshawa in 2022. While she visits the interstices of provinces, disciplines and literary genres, her work always explores different facets of transformation: aging, healing, caring, and all this with the need to connect with oneself, others and the world.
