_Bio Fred Laforge completed his doctorate in Études et pratiques des arts at UQAM in 2016. His work has been shown in Canada and abroad in several group and solo exhibitions, and he recently presented work at the National Print Museum in Mexico City. This artist has also produced various public art projects in Canada. — Eddy Firmin has a diploma from the École supérieure d’art du Havre and from the Institut régional d’art visuel de la Martinique. He is currently a doctoral student in Études et pratiques des arts at UQAM. In 2011, Firmin was entrusted to visually remodel the stain-glass windows of Notre-Dame de la Guadeloupe Cathedral. His art practice combines sculpture, drawing, digital art and performance, and questions the art narrative of his traditional Caribbean culture.
_Approach The art practice of the duo Laforge/ Firmin is linked to the meeting of the Guadeloupian artist, Quebecois by adoption and the Quebecois artist. The two artists share a similar sensibility concerning identity and diversity. From the perspective of their art disciplines, their practices include drawing, printmaking, sculpture and installation. — Both Guadeloupe and Quebec have been subjected to colonialism in various ways. In fact, each of these cultures has been confronted, at various times in history, with issues of appropriation, censure and assimilation. The duo’s questioning focuses on notions of power, identity and diversity and on relations between dominant and minority groups. The issue of cultural appropriation appears too often exploited to the advantage of a colonialist vision, or on the contrary, to benefit a discourse in which the individual is enclosed in his or her cultural ethnicity.
_Project Laforge and Firmin would like to continue their reflection on aspects of identity and diversity. Their concerns will focus thus on the complex and tense relations between these two notions. They plan to work with objects stemming from their respective cultures, objects that look like handicrafts but are usually mass-produced in factories. These objects will be reinterpreted in order to open up their meanings. In particular, they will be distorted or combined to create a form of cultural hybridization. The artists also plan to create an installation inspired by souvenir shops, in which they will integrate hand-made objects produced by their four hands. This display will enable the artists to question the concept of cultural appropriation through notions of exoticism, otherness and globalization. Their interest in such experimenting is to explore the heritage of colonialism because the souvenir shop is a continuation of this narrative, such as the curiosity cabinet of exotic objects.
