Programming

From the Old French peuple and -⁠ier, meaning “tree,” the poplar is recognizable by the distinctive rustling and trembling of its thick leaves when blown by the wind. Its delicate yet striking musicality is deeply ingrained in the collective imagination, evoking feelings of space and tranquility.

Fast-growing and undemanding, this tree is one of the first species to populate the edges of wetlands and urban wastelands. In this sense, it outlines the contours of public spaces open to appropriation. Now integrated into the landscaping of Montreal's Centre-Sud borough, imposing specimens bear vivid witness to the many economic and social changes that have shaped, and continue to shape, its neighborhoods.

In line with the theme proposed by DARE-DARE, which invites reflection on “spaces in motion, their location, displacement, relocation, metamorphosis, spaces of escape [and] spaces that escape,” Peupleraie highlights the presence of poplar trees found in streets, alleys, and parks.

For walkers equipped with a cell phone and headphones, a series of recordings allows them to hear the sound of the wind in the poplar leaves. Through a web interface, the sounds increase in intensity or fade away as the walker approaches or moves away from a geolocated tree. In doing so, their movements also delineate silences that settle in the interstices between trees, allowing other surrounding noises to manifest themselves as they listen.

Therefore, we can imagine that all these superimpositions and juxtapositions that exist in the places and temporality of trees and people constitute a formal question: how is the cohesion of a group built in relation to the environment in which it evolves, and how can we highlight a shared perception of the ecosystems we live alongside, whether they are open and large-scale or intimate and personal?

Caroline Gagné

Caroline Gagné's artistic proposals attempt to capture the subtle changes that reveal the places she explores, like clues, but without showing them explicitly. She unveils them by developing various devices composed of objects, motion capture, sounds, or raw materials. The resulting works are sensitive interfaces whose poetry lies in the connectivity they establish, orchestrating it with the elements that constitute them, but also with the places they refer to and the people who frequent them.

In 2020, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal's national collection acquired her work Le bruit des icebergs (The Sound of Icebergs) for its permanent collection. In 2022, Oboro Editions published Caroline Gagné: Donner corps à l'insaisissable / Embodying the Intangible, a retrospective look at her artistic career.