Festival Art Souterrain

Date: Saturday, April 5 – 3:30 PM
Location: Visitor Centre. World Trade Centre Montréal (747 du Square-Victoria Street, Suite 130 — Mezzanine Floor, Montréal, QC)
Length: 45-60 min
*Activity in French

As part of this exclusive event featuring hot beverages, Annie-Kim Rainville and Geneviève Thibault will share their practices and discuss their projects, 1 ½ : techniques, défis et tranches de vie and J’habite au 148. In both projects, representations of living spaces are created through visits to domestic environments. The techniques and methods differ, as do the habitats represented—ranging from small apartments in large cities to varied dwellings in rural areas. The discussion between Rainville and Thibault will address several key issues, including the exposure of intimacy, the strategies each artist has developed to navigate imbalances in their relationships, the emotional impact of their encounters, and how representing everyday dwellings and experiences enables them to express themselves. The artists will also launch their two recent publications during the event.

Annie-Kim Rainville
Originally from Boisbriand, Rainville is an artist and cultural worker based in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang / Montréal. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM in 2022. In 2024, she furthered her research through a mentorship program at the Verticale (Laval, QC) artist-run centre, followed by a creative residency at the centre SAGAMIE (Alma, QC) in 2025. Her work has been presented at various exhibition venues in Montréal, including Gham et Dafe, the Galerie de l’UQAM, and Centre Clark.

She uses humour and the production of craft to examine the territories of everyday life critically. Her artistic practice aims to share her fascination with ordinary images, employing drawing, printmaking, embroidery, and papermaking. She is the recipient of a Canada Council creative grant in 2024, allowing her to pursue a drawing-research project titled 1 ½ : techniques, défis et tranches de vie. In this project, she engages with individuals who, like her, live in micro-housing, conducting visits to produce observational drawings and small-scale crafts and collect personal stories. The outcomes of these encounters—drawings, stories, and reflections—are compiled into a micropublication entitled 1 ½ : techniques, défis et tranches de vie. Rencontres lavalloises.

Geneviève Thibault
Born in Matane, Thibault and her family moved back there in 2013. After studying photography at Cégep de Matane, she will complete a Multidisciplinary Bachelor’s degree at Université Laval in 2019, followed by a Master’s degree in Art Practice at Université du Québec en Outaouais in 2024. Her master’s research and creation focused on the interplay between art and ethnology, deepening her exploration of the home as a site of encounter and representation. In her project J’habite au 148, she made unannounced visits to residences with the civic number 148, meeting occupants and photographing fragments of their homes. The resulting photographic book features images taken between 2016 and 2023, along with excerpts from a field diary. The living spaces presented are in Gaspésie, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Côte-Nord, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, and Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

In 2024, she received the Yvonne L. Bombardier Visual Arts grant, and her projects have received support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. His video installation Corps habité, produced in collaboration with the Ursulines de Québec, will circulate in Quebec between 2023 and 2025, notably at Espaces F (Matane), La Bande Vidéo (Quebec City), DRAC (Drummondville), Occurrence (Montreal), and Galerie d’art du Parc (Trois-Rivières).