Press
Release - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montréal, February 7, 2007
Fine crafts CONTAMINATIONS:
at the Montreal All-Nighter and at the
Canadian Guild of Crafts
Weaving through wood; glass becomes clay; pearls piercing porcelain; textiles with transparency... Artists from the MAM Fine Crafts Collective (the Métiers d’Art Motivés – “motivated fine crafts”) cross-breed their crafts in CONTAMINATIONS, an exhibition of combined works presented at the Canadian Guild of Crafts from March 8-17, 2007 – with a sneak preview at the Montreal HighLights Festival' All-Nighter, overnight March 3-4, 2007, at the Place des Arts.
All works presented in the exhibition share the themes of contamination, hybridity, and duality, and each work combines a number of fine craft media: glass, ceramics, jewellery, textile construction, textile printing, and woodworking... The results are infectious!
"We wanted to do something different for this exhibition," says ceramics student Jacinthe Brind'Amour: "Since 2007 is National Craft Year, and our collective tries to encourage collaborations between artists and the creation of combined works, we thought is would be interesting to organise something that went beyond an exhibition that just presents works from a number of fine crafts media – so we decided that for this exhibition, we would only produce works that were created from a combination of fine crafts. The results are quite varied and exciting – and the chance to have a sneak preview at the Montreal All-Nighter, at a live fine crafts happening... it's just fantastic!"
The MAM Fine Crafts Collective will present a LIVE FINE CRAFTS MIXED-MEDIA "HAPPENING" at the Montréal HighLights Festival ALL-NIGHTER, from 11pm to 5am March 3-4, 2007, in the Foyer Jean-Gascon at Place des Arts (entrance via Place des Arts, métro-level). The public is invited to come see the spontaneous creation of hybrid light-based artworks, combining ceramics, textiles, jewellery, woodworking, leatherwork, glass... An exhibition of fine crafts artworks will also be presented, including a sneak preview work (by Marianne Chevalier and Janelle Mellamphy) from CONTAMINATIONS. A fine-crafts-info zone will explain a little about each craft our collective represents and, in the performance zone, there will be a series of shows by Montreal performers, including music by Tropik D-frost and Share, and a dynamic percussive dance performance by local troupe Bourask. (The Foyer Jean-Gascon bar will also be open.)
The MAM collective's members are up-and-coming artists in ceramics, textile construction, jewellery, woodworking, textile printing, and glass. The artists shown in CONTAMINATIONS are: Jacinthe Brind'Amour, Marianne Chevalier, Marie Pierre Daigle, Geneviève Juillet, Alicia Legault Verdier, Amélie Lucier, Janelle Mellamphy, Julien Mongeau, Julie-Soleil Nadeau, Nicolas Ouellet, Caroline Paul, Sabine Pichon, and Jérôme Zaavy.
Active since 2002, MAM started out as a group of fine crafts students and recent graduates from the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal; MAM became an independent artists' collective in 2006, the same year they presented their first Fine Crafts Colloquium, where industry specialists discussed aspects of emerging artists' entry into the contemporary fine crafts world. MAM's objectives are to promote work by new fine craft artists, and to create contacts and resources that encourage close associations and a potential combination of techniques.
CONTAMINATIONS will be presented from March 8 to March 17, 2007, at the Canadian Guild of Crafts, 1460-B Sherbrooke St. W., Montréal; the opening will take place Thursday March 8 at 5:30. SNEAK PREVIEW: a LIVE FINE CRAFTS MIXED-MEDIA "HAPPENING" at the Montréal HighLights Festival ALL-NIGHTER, March 3-4, 2007, from 11pm to 5am in the Foyer Jean-Gascon of Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts (entrance via Place des Arts, métro-level).
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON:
THE MAM FINE CRAFTS COLLECTIVE : http://www.mam-montreal.com
THE CANADIAN GUILD OF CRAFT : http://www.canadianguild.com/
MONTREAL HIGHLIGHTS FESTIVAL ALL-NIGHTER : http://www.montrealenlumiere.com/
CRAFT YEAR 2007 : http://www.craftyear2007.ca/
CONTACT THE MAM COLLECTIVE: email mam-montreal.com ; 514.333.2626
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