Date : Thursday, May 02 at 6 pm
Location : Le Labo – 401 Richmond Queen St W – Studio 277
Ticketing : sign up for free on Eventbrite.
Partner : Les productions Rhizome
© Maison natale de Louis Fréchette / Maryon Desjardins (left photo)
From April 22 to May 06, we welcome artists Murielle Jassinthe (Iqaluit, Nunavut) and Oana Avasilichioaei (Montreal, Quebec) to Le Labo as part of a cross-residency in partnership with Rhizome Productions. The two artists will share the Labo studio for a few days – an opportunity, we hope, to create synergies and enriching discussions.
At Le Labo, we favor experimentation and exploration over productivity and results. From 2023 to 2026, we’re letting Le Labo lie fallow to allow artists to create and sow seeds that can germinate later. It’s in this spirit that we welcome Oana and Murielle.
So that they can share with you their thoughts, their questions and any synergies that may have been created between their practices, we’re organizing an artistic chat on May 02 at 6pm at Le Labo. We’ll be talking poetry, writing, sound art… Join us!
Take your place on EVENTBRITE !
Some questions we’re already thinking about…
- How has the city of Toronto influenced your thoughts during this residency?
- Did you feel like you were in a « fallow period » during your time at Le Labo?
- What does intermediality / multidisciplinarity bring to your practice?
Of Haitian origin, Murielle Jassinthe grew up in Québec City, Québec, before settling in Iqaluit, Nunavut, in 2014. A member of the Canada Research Chair in African and Francophone Literatures (Université Laval), she is pursuing a bachelor’s and master’s degree in literary studies.
In October 2010, her poems were published by Bruno Doucey as part of the anthology Terre de femmes, 150 ans de poésie féminine en Haïti. Winner of the Première Ovation scholarship, from the Canadian Institute of Quebec, in 2011, her love of words led her to embrace poetry, short stories, stories and essays as well as dramatic and screenwriting. She co-authored the essay « Nouvelle dramaturgie haïtienne et les mots du chaos », in 2014, in the scientific journal Interlignes – Haïti : la révolte en mots et en couleurs, from the Catholic Institute of Toulouse. She also published the literary short story « Nukaliak – le carnet », n 2016, in magazine Possibles. Interdisciplinary artist (writing, photography, performing arts, media arts), she combines creativity and social awareness.
Oana Avasilichioaei’s artistic practice blends diverse fields such as poetry, translation, photography, film, sound and performance. She explores the possibilities of translation between these fields, questioning their meanings, conventions and structures. Her interests include language as trace and resistance, polyglot and polyphonic poetry, phonotopes (spaces between words, sounds and images) and transformation.
She presents her work and lectures on poetry and translation in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe. From 2004 to 2009, she founded and hosted the Atwater Poetry Project reading series in Montreal. She was also writer-in-residence at Green College, UBC, in Vancouver in 2009, and Canadian writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary from 2010 to 2011. In 2018, she was Visual Artist in Residence Audain at Simon Fraser University, and from 2023 to 2024, she was a member of Rhizome in collaboration with Kaie Kellough.
