May 1st – 31st, 2025
Michelle Caron-Pawlowsky, Anne Dahl, Ioana Dragomir, Mathieu Gagnon, Charlotte Ghomeshi, M Gnanasihamany, Malik Mckoy, Antoine Racine, Saba Sharifi, Tyra Maria Trono and Anne-Sophie Vallée
Projects selected by Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, Curator of Quebec and Canadian contemporary art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and Nicole Burisch, Director of the LBEAG
This twentieth edition of IGNITION brings together eleven artists whose practices share an interest in addressing the central importance of emotions and sensations. Most of the works evoke nature as a subject or reference through which to examine rituals and their transformative potential, resilience that manifests as a process of regeneration or resistance, and survival through material memory. The artists use evocative materials that create, through their fragility, delicacy, hardness, or brittleness, metaphors that elicit multiple sensory responses. Images of refuge and sanctuary, anchored within a garden and a vacant lot, are presented next to works made with plants and minerals—each of them encouraging us to slow down and contemplate, just as nature follows its own rhythm, unperturbed.
Trained in jewellery design, Anne Dahl embeds temperature-sensitive stones into hanging sculptures inspired by metalsmithing techniques used to rework the surface of found metals. Her use of mood stones transforms the piece into an atmospheric sculpture that changes colour in response to the temperature of the room. The work attempts to make an otherwise immaterial reality visible, much like Mathieu Gagnon’s photographs of an abandoned site in the east end of Montreal that, over the past thirty years, has become overgrown with trees. These images, some of which are imprinted onto plaster slabs, bear witness to an inspiring form of resilience by exposing nature’s self-regenerating capabilities. Local citizens have banded together to express their affection for this small forest, under threat from urban development, and insist that preserving it would benefit the neighbourhood by improving everyone’s quality of life. Ioana Dragomir’s screens made of woven, collaged images of the sky over Virginia Woolf’s garden also indirectly question the private ownership of nature. This celestial landscape, the expanse of which can only be defined by the artificial boundaries of the image’s frame, seems ungraspable, and thus unattainable. Here, these views are instead used to make privacy screens that provide some degree of anonymity within a public setting. The tension between private and public space is also explored by M Gnanasihamany in an installation that features openings toward an elusive elsewhere. Concerned with notions of confinement and exclusion, the artist creates opportunities for escape that are, in fact, simply lures: an inaccessible skylight with a small view to the outside, or a cellphone screen that doubles as a mirror and a surveillance tool. Who, ultimately, has the right to freedom as depicted in these vast expanses, that we can only glimpse?
Polysemy is at the centre of Michelle Caron-Pawlowsky’s installation Finishing Holds, which combines gestures of grief with those of professional wrestling. As suggested by the work’s title, which evokes holding a dying loved one for the last time as much asthe final move of a wrestling match, Caron-Pawlowsky looks at mourning rituals through time, such as ancient Greek funeral games that sought to appease the spirits of the dead. Nearby, a work by Malik McKoy depicts two men locked in an embrace under a layer of clear plastic wrap. The piece humorously blends several semantic worlds by simultaneously evoking fresh meat, violence, fraternity, and homoerotic gestures, which, in today’s sociopolitical context, remain risky in public. For her part, Charlotte Ghomeshi imagines a funerary ritual in honour of her grandfather Siamack that combines Québec landscapes with Iranian cultural practices. In her video diptych, natural areas show signs of the changing seasons, and act as carriers of regeneration and transformation to symbolically evoke the impermanence of life. Nevertheless, they become a refuge, synonymous with calm and serenity. Sharifi Saba’s tiny architectural forms made of used tea bags metonymically address the importance of gatherings and moments of sharing to ensure survival through memory. The humble nature and fragile texture of her buildings suggest the intimacy of secrets; for conversation to be truly free, places must be conducive to listening and guarantee a sense of security.
Anne-Sophie Vallée’s work looks at the permeable nature of living bodies. Here, she addresses the notion of caring for a rapidly changing natural world, affected in particular by the widespread presence of micro-plastics and other non-organic substances that upset the balance of nature’s ecosystems. Natural and industrial-looking hybrid substances are displayed in a would-be sterile environment, creating a kind of haptic experience. They arouse our curiosity and make us question the nature of our own corporality, disrupting the concept of an autonomous world and the firm distinction between interiority and exteriority. The symbiotic relationship we have with our surrounding environment means that this boundary is illusory. Antoine Racine’s series infravivants follows this same line of thought. Comprised of five light boxes, the work references the notion of memento mori by displaying dormant microbial cultures gathered in an abandoned, post-industrial lot in Montréal in the summer of 2024. By drawing our attention to seemingly minor life forms, they recentre our gaze on decomposition processes that are essential to the cycle of life. In doing so, Racine validates their role in our survival by cultivating a deeper appreciation of realities they see as co-creations. Thus, in turn, the works by these artists call on us to slow down in order to better observe and feel, and let ourselves be more permeable and open to transformation.
— Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre and Nicole Burisch, curators
IGNITION is an annual exhibition that features new work by students currently enrolled in the Studio Arts or Humanities graduate programs at Concordia University. It provides an up and coming generation of artists with a unique opportunity to present ambitious, interdisciplinary works in the professional context of a gallery with a national and international profile. Students and the gallery team work together to produce an exhibition that places an emphasis on critical, innovative and experimental work engaging in the exploration and consideration of diverse media and practices. IGNITION is of interest to all students and faculty, the art community, and the general public.
Projects selected by Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, Curator of Quebec and Canadian contemporary art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and Nicole Burisch, Director of the LBEAG.
ARTISTS AND WORKS
Finishing Holds, 2025—
Crocheted metal wire, fishing line, scrolling LED panel and chalk powder
Performers: Emma Dal Monte and Abi Hodson
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Michelle Caron-Pawlowsky’s work is concerned with ritual and transformation. Their practice spans installation, image- making, sound, sculpture, and text. It is both diaristic and informed by research into contemporary popular culture, geopoetics, queer ecology, folklore, species extinction, poetry, and ritual practice. They are particularly concerned with the material and transformational possibilities of images and often experiment with the meanings that arise when images are given a re-established physical presence.
Finishing Holds questions the transformation of rituals and asks what forms a modern ritual can take. This project considers personal experiences with grief and reimagines the mourning ritual through the lens of professional wrestling, drawing on the history of public combat as an ancient commemorative funeral ceremony.
EXPLORE
The title references both the wrestling move and final embraces. How does the work evoke this duality within its materiality?
What are other examples of rituals that have been transformed into commodities?
TRANSCRIPT
Your right hand is on their chin. Wrap your arms around their body at the small of the back and hug them close. Lying on them hugging them. Wrap your left arm around the back of their neck. Their chin should be resting on your left shoulder. Pull them in close. Lean the weight of their chest on your body.
Your right hand is behind their neck. Squeeze tightly and lean forward. You may have the desire to swing them around, letting their feet fly. Grasp your right hand around their left hand in a firm grip. Hold them for a long period of time.
CloseWhole View Of A Shift, 2025
Aluminum heat shields (found and re-formed), lathe turned wood coated, charcoal, oil, thermochromic “mood” stones (set throughout), sturgeon scutes (cleaned by Jesse), pear (dehydrated in studio and set in bronze), white bronze positive of a concrete hole (from 545 Legendre Ouest), slide image (inherited from great uncle Ernest), white bronze links, charcoal (from fire in Golden, B.C), steel wool (used to clean found metal then encased in white bronze), cork (debris from Taylor), hand formed brass links, sterling silver, amber, topaz, wax
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Anne Dahl is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on metal sculpture, found materials, and sound. She centres themes of presence, movement, material hierarchies and physical agencies inspiring the collaboration between body and object from her perspective and history as a jeweller.
Whole View Of A Shift explores the sense of self in relation to technology and its impact on our understanding of presence including that of the self. The assemblage of objects and debris acts as a daily timeline mirroring physical tensions, and tethers between the illusion of invisible technological structures and the body. It plays with non-linearity, weightedness, material value systems and critical reflection in both product and process.
EXPLORE
Heat-sensitive “mood stones” are incorporated into the piece, altering their colour in the presence of bodily warmth. How else are notions of the body and corporeal fluctuations evoked in the artwork?
The work combines both precious and found objects bound together by chains. How might these material configurations reflect the artist’s portrayal of tension within technology and the body?
Closeprivacy screen for kissing (for Virginia), 2024
Digital prints on bond paper of Virginia Woolf’s skies (woven), plastic gardening mesh, turned pine, cedar and cherry, steel, porcelain, ribbon, vellum, stickers, glass beads and paper clips
457.2 × 188 × 30.48 cm
privacy screen for lying down (for Virginia), 2024
Digital prints on bond paper of Virginia Woolf’s skies (woven), plastic gardening mesh, turned cedar and pine, glass beads, wood fibre panels, vellum, ribbon, paper clips and acrylic paint
304.8 × 101.6 × 30.48 cm
untitled (real swallows!), 2024
Window stickers
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Ioana Dragomir is interested in close reading and translation, interpreting them both as creative and transformative. Her work is rooted in a post-structuralist logic of shifting/slipping/tenuous connections, of putting things next to each other. This ungroundedness is flirtatious, an invitation to uncertainty that produces new ways of seeing and being.
To take these strips of Virginia Woolf’s sky and weave them, to make the atmosphere solid, to use it to create privacy (the kind that only hides kisses and secrets) and set the scene. To suggest that this house or this screen is a stage and that by focusing/unfocusing our eye on the sky in just the right way, when we are dropped back down from it, we might alight near her.
EXPLORE
Both privacy screens engage in concealing intimate acts and also revealing the intimate atmosphere of Woolf’s worlds. Through its mesh makeup and other materials, what other intimacies does the work obscure and expose?
The use of swallows references their appearance as a play’s set dressing within Woolf’s final novel Between the Acts. How does their presence on the interior vitrine influence notions of staging and theatre in the gallery context?
CloseCartography of Erasures, 2024—
Ruisseau de Montigny (Lidar) [de Montigny stream], 2024
Digital print, 109 x 101 cm
Friche de Longue-Pointe [Longue-Pointe wasteland], 2024
Digital print, 109 x 81 cm
Boisé d’Ailleboust – campement [Ailleboust woodland – encampment], 2024
Digital print, 96.5 x 81 cm
Stèle (marais, roseaux) [Stele (marsh, reeds)], 2024
Oil ink on plaster panels, 84 x 110 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Mathieu Gagnon’s practice focuses on locations with symbolic, historical, or environmental significance. Reconstitution, akin to archeology, is central to his approach, viewing urban and natural environments as fragmented narratives requiring reinterpretation through field exploration and archival research. His work incorporates aerial imagery and cartography, prompting critical commentary about urbanity, policies, utopias, and the built environment.
Cartography of Erasures addresses urban sites transformed by development through various photographic methods and materialities—3D scanning, archival imagery, maps—as well as images engraved onto raw materials such as plaster. The project explores the extensive wastelands of Longue-Pointe in Hochelaga and their distinctive topography along the river, adopting both documentary and poetic approaches.
EXPLORE
How does the artist’s varying engagements with image making (e.g. photography, 3D scanning, engraving) inform different methods of reconstituting these untended environments?
In what ways do the composition of these images challenge notions of urban “wastelands” and “unused” space?
CloseA Breeze from the Sea, 2025
Two-channel video installation, colour, sound
4 min. 30 sec.
Courtesy of the artist
Through photography and video, Charlotte Ghomeshi explores memory, intimacy, and life’s ineffable questions. Her work weaves personal and familial narratives, reflecting on relationships, nature, and loss. Rooted in a therapeutic process, the work unfolds intuitively, often through staged scenes. Her current research examines how her Iranian, Québécois, and Italian heritage shape her identity.
A Breeze from the Sea memorializes Ghomeshi’s grandfather, Siamack, who after battling cancer for 20 years, rejected a traditional funeral, choosing to have his ashes scattered in water. In response, the artist created a personal space for mourning, reimagining the Persian garden within Quebec’s landscape as a sanctuary where his spirit endures. This project reflects her quest to reconnect with her origins, exploring life, death, and the unanswered questions about Siamack and their shared heritage.
EXPLORE
Observe how the artist blends landscape and culture in the video to render homage to Siamack. How does this montage impact temporality and spatiality?
What role does sound play in constructing atmospheres of reflection?
TRANSCRIPT & CREDITS
Ronevisi-ye do’â-ye Siamack Ghomeshi
Ay saahebe zamaan
Ay bakh-shandeye mehrabaan
Tan-haa toa raa mi-parastam va
Tan-haa toa raa be koamak mitalabam
Ma-raa beh raa-he raast hedaa-yat koan
English Translation of Siamack Ghomeshi’s prayer
O master of time
O owner of merciful time
I only worship you and
I ask you only for help
Guide me to the right path
Musician: Showan Tavakol
Director of Photography: Aziz Zoromba
Sound Designer: Ilyaa Ghafouri
Sound Recordist: Andrés Solis
The artist wishes to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for their support
CloseAs Above, No Fixed State, 2024
Wooden frame, monitor, GIF, 13 sec. (looped)
Dimensions variable
Views, 2024
Wooden frame on wheels, windows, braided rope, iPhone, video, 3 min. (looped)
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Through sculpture, video, textiles, and poetry, M Gnanasihamany utilizes framing and positioning to collaboratively consider what we may see as we resist structures of surveillance, incarceration, and imperialism. What kinds of geographies, landscapes, and communities become possible when we see beyond and through systems of exclusion, abandonment, and control? How might we see differently as we become more free?
As Above, No Fixed State and Views are ongoing investigations into carceral geographies and how they are sensed and resisted at the levels of images, architectures, and spatial politics. There is no neutral or natural view of the landscape: from skies incidentally captured by surveillance cameras to cellphone pictures of the setting sun. In unsettling ways of seeing land, space, and each other, the gaze redirects towards liberatory horizons.
EXPLORE
Contemplate the view from the imitation skylight. How does the work expose how architecture disciplines the body and dictates access to resources?
As you survey the artwork, Views appears to survey you back. How does the feeling of being seen change the way you interact with the piece?
Closerinse with vinegar, 2025
Acrylic on wood relief
58.1 × 73.7× 12.7 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Through painting and digital media, Malik McKoy explores themes of intimacy and self-expression. Inspired by cartoons and graffiti, his work is vibrant and expressive in mark making. By airbrushing, his paintings are at once atmospheric and akin to drawing, putting things in and out of focus. McKoy hopes to contribute to the expansion of queer perspectives in the African diaspora within contemporary art.
The genesis of this project is a 2D computer- rendered image made by the artist as a farewell gift for a lover before relocating to Montreal. The work celebrates what the relationship once was and welcomes how it may take form over time. As years pass, the work now speaks to the difficulty of preserving long-distance relationships despite the many means of communication at our disposal.
EXPLORE
Notice the piece’s resemblance to grocery meat packaging. How does the tension of revelation of forms with the abstraction and obfuscation of details inform a queer reading of this work?
How does the work’s use of texture and colour communicate the feelings of longing and changing relationship dynamics?
Closeinfravivants, 2025
Sugar, rice, dormant microbial cultures and light boxes
41 × 24 cm each
Courtesy of the artist
Antoine Racine proposes ephemeral systems oriented towards the vitality of the materials that compose them. Whether mold, atmospheric variations, bacteria, radio waves, hacked artifacts or residual materials, they aim to shift our attention toward these so-called “minor” forms of existence, often confined to the background of our lives.
infravivants [infra-living] explores the ability of certain microbes to enter a state of dormancy, following their immersion in a high-pressure osmotic mixture. By asserting their presence through light boxes, the installation unfolds a space inhabited by liminal life forms, neither completely dead nor completely alive. A suspended time, haunted by the possibility of awakening. It thus questions the temporality of these sleeping beings—perhaps for a few days, perhaps for millions of years.
EXPLORE
Consider the biotic material the artist uses to create this installation. How does their suspension of movement and growth interrogate themes of temporality and agency in the work?
Compare the different lightboxes. What are the similarities and differences across the crafted microbial environments?
CloseTea House, 2024 – 2025
Tea bags and starch glue
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Saba Sharifi explores themes of identity, diaspora, language, and immigration. Her current work focuses on creating collaborative sites to contemplate otherness and researching traditional imagery. Beyond her studio practice, she seeks to facilitate accessible spaces for collaboration and collective reflection of diaspora and identity through the curatorial lens.
Tea House is a series of miniature architectural structures made from used tea bags exploring the poetic relationship between tea and shared spaces. Expanding on her previous project, A Cup of Tea, it reflects on cultural rituals, gatherings, and acts of transmission. The stains and textures of the tea bags hold traces of past conversations, alluding to the connection between tea, community, and storytelling.
EXPLORE
Observe the structures closely and carefully. What forms of imagined architectures unfold and what may they represent?
Tea is a common catalyst for interpersonal connection. What might be such a catalyst in your circles? What are its artistic potentials?
CloseJust a Small Amount for Your Expenses, 2024-2025
Digital print on vinyl
312.42 x 492.86 cm
Tyra Maria Trono is an artist whose work explores memory, diaspora, and cultural identity through the material traces of global migration, labour, and inheritance. Engaging with everyday objects, rituals, and dollar-store aesthetics, her practice investigates how sentimental and disposable items circulate across borders, shaping diasporic belonging. Through installations, she examines how cultural memory is mediated by economic systems, highlighting the complex intersections between care, commodification, and transnational exchange.
Just a Small Amount for Your Expenses is an installation that blends photographs, souvenirs, and discount-store objects sourced from the Philippines and Montreal to explore diasporic longing and cultural transmission. Reflecting her ongoing engagement with dollar-store aesthetics, the work evokes the textures of homecoming through pasalubong-inspired gestures. It invites viewers to consider how memory, sentimentality, and cultural identity are negotiated through everyday objects shaped by migration, nostalgia, and consumerism.
CloseStretcher, 2025
Agar, glycerin, graphite, wheat, steel, glass and wood
203.2 × 66.04 × 101.6 cm
Church Bed, 2025
Agar, glycerin, metalized mica, steel, glass, silicone and wood 182.88 × 66.04 × 96.52 cm
Tray Rack, 2025
Agar, glycerin, graphite, copper, brass, metalized mica, steel, glass, wood, dust and compost
50.8 × 81.28 × 182.88 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Anne-Sophie Vallée’s work deals with the symbiotic relationships between the body and the environment. She is concerned with the insidious enmeshment of synthetic substances that seep into our bodies and the natural world through quotidian skin-to-skin contact. Vallée examines vitalism and new material feminism by incorporating metal and mineral micro-particles that blend in organic matter such as plants, sugar, and gelatine.
Vallée’s work pulls from a feminist criticism of Western philosophical object theory and sensibilities traditionally associated with the feminine such as interiority. Vallée considers the barrier between inside and outside to be unconfined as we are constantly exposed to new material contaminations. From an eco-feminist standpoint, she seeks new ways of being-with (Haraway, Barad, Davis) as we are bound to a capitalist economy of petrochemical dependencies.
EXPLORE
Examine the varying materials used in the composition of these works. How does this mixing of materials reference the porosity between natural and synthetic bodies?
What is the role of the display mechanism (stretcher, bed, and rack) and how does the specificity of each influence the reading of the materials they present?
Close