Concept by
Dyana Ouvrard
Interviews and Editing
Sawsan Borges Da Moura
Publication Year
2026
Production
Sawsan Borges Da Moura
Dyana Ouvrard
Recordings
February 2026
Illustration
Dyana Ouvrard
Voices
Murielle Jassinthe, Sawsan Borges Da Moura, Dyana Ouvrard, the elders of the Heritage Reception Centres in Toronto.
Productions
Le Labo
Supported and Funded
By the Canada Council for the Arts.
“With Humus, the multiplicity of viewpoints, women’s voices, realities, and literary genres invoked (novel, song, archival documents) leads us to bring the tragedy of the triangular trade and the slave trade down to a human scale: carnal and psychological, emotional and spiritual.”
Quartier Libre and our micro-library at Studio 277, 401 Richmond. For this second iteration of our vigil outside our walls and in the context of Black History Month (February), we invited Murielle Jassinthe, a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and photographer born in Quebec and based in Nunavut, to speak to us about books that have inspired her.
Murielle selected 6 works. The discussion with the elders at the Heritage reception centers focused on three of them: Les fées ont soif by Denis Boucher published in 1978, Humus by Fabienne Kanor published in 2006, and Cahier d’un retour au natal by Aimée Césaire, published in 1939.
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Matières douces is a podcast initiated by Le Labo, The Toronto Art Laboratory, which explores the links between artistic creation, deceleration, and eco-responsibility.
Through several pre-recorded episodes broadcast on CHOQ FM radio, the series gives a voice to artists and curators who question our way of inhabiting the world: reading, walking, exhibiting, and collaborating differently.
Recorded between the Quartier Libre micro-library at Studio 277 (401 Richmond in Toronto) and Toronto’s public spaces, Gentle Matters weaves conversations around:
- deceleration and anti-capitalist imaginaries
- decoloniality through writing
- walking as an artistic and ecological practice,
- distance as a space for creation