If you see only one art event this season, make sure it is the powerful double-feature currently taking over the Galerie de l’UQAM. Together with the Musée d’art de Joliette, the gallery is presenting two stunning exhibitions that take painful history and turn it into unforgettable, visual magic.
A Masterclass in Counter-Prospection
The centerpiece of the show is Anahita Norouzi’s Rift, an absolute triumph of an exhibition. Norouzi takes us deep into the history of oil drilling in Iran, exposing how the rush for petroleum tore apart both the landscape and the local communities. Through massive, glowing film projections and striking sculptures, she doesn’t just show us the environmental damage—she asks a brilliant, hopeful question: How do we plant new seeds and build a better future in the ruins left behind by empires? With haunting imagery of endless pipelines, wild flames, and crumbling ruins, Norouzi’s work feels wildly relevant to our modern world and the ongoing fights over climate and energy. Instead of just looking back, Norouzi asks how we can build a better ecological future out of the ruins of the past.
Re-enacting the Archive
Stepping into the neighboring room for Lucia Choulakian’s Le ciel était d’un bleu éclatant is an equally emotional experience. As a fourth-generation survivor of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Choulakian explores how deep family trauma travels across generations. She traveled back to Turkey with her mother to physically recreate old, fragmented archive photos on the actual historical sites. In the gallery, ten projected images fade in and out across three angled walls in an endless loop, surrounding you in light and shadow while a handwritten journal sits right at the center. It is an incredibly intimate, heartbreaking, and beautiful room that stops you right in your tracks.
Both Norouzi and Choulakian prove that art doesn’t have to stay stuck in the past. They take dusty archives, forgotten photos, and dark historical chapters, breathing dynamic new life into them. This isn’t just an exhibition you walk through and forget—it’s an emotional experience that stays with you long after you walk out the doors.
The exhibition runs until January 16, 2027. To learn more, click HERE.
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