Group Exhibition — A World in Common

 

Co-presented by the Grantham Foundation and the Biosphère | Espace pour la vie, A World in Common showcases the work of 10 artists or artist duos and is presented at two venues: the Biosphère in Montreal and the Grantham Foundation in Saint-Edmond-de-Grantham. The exhibition is curated by Julie Bélisle and Josianne Poirier.

Designed in two parts, the exhibition first brings together works by Maude Arès, Hannah Claus, Frédéric Lavoie, Angela Marsh, and Kimberly Orjuela at the Grantham Foundation, from May 2 to July 26, 2026. The second part, presented at the Biosphere from September 5, 2026, to May 2, 2027, will feature artists Geneviève Chevalier, Jim Holyoak, Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, Taqralik Partridge & Tiffany Shaw and Miranda Smitheram.

 

Graphic design: Yacine Caiserman and Yasmine Taïbi

 
 

A World in Common

Text by Josianne Poirier and Julie Belisle
Curators

Photos: studio dedans dehors

 

By adopting the perspective of the owl, the field mouse, or even the dandelion, the works gathered in this exhibition shift our perspective. They encourage us to consider how the land welcomes us and how we share it with other species, inviting us to commit to a pluralistic, supportive, and deeply relational world. Through acts of care, collaborative approaches to creation, and attention to interspecies ethics, these works offer a broad understanding of the notion of hospitality and encourage us to rethink our ways of “inhabiting.” Together, they explore the possibility of “a world in common” where all living beings can flourish.

 

Views of the exhibition at the Grantham Foundation

 
 

Artists featured in this exhibition 

 

Maude Arès

Maude Arès is an interdisciplinary artist. Working across installation, sculpture, performance, scenography, and drawing, her artistic practice investigates the sensitive relationships between materials, most often found ones. Through their arrangement, her work stages vulnerable environments that invite us to listen to, appreciate, and understand the subtleties of the tangible world. Maude explores her reflections on the performance of materials and the gestures that animate them through projects that interweave visual and performing arts. Through close attention to the charge and activity of materials, she observes the visible and invisible relationships of interdependence linking human and non-human beings. 

Maude Arès, La peau de l’étang : celle dont les croisements cernent les visions du tube, 2024-2026, fabric, found materials, ceramic, beeswax, papier-mâché, 160 x 226 cm

 
 

Maude Arès, L’eaublier, 2026, ceramic, rope, steel rod, papier-mâché, cotton, beeswax, linseed oil, wire, 914 x 213 cm

 
 

Hannah Claus, teyoweratá:se, 2021, double-matte reprographic film, thread, acrylic, aluminum, 243 x 243 x 305 cm 

Hannah Claus

Hannah Claus (member of the Kenhtè:ke | Tyendinaga community – Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte) is a Kanien’kehá:ka and English visual artist. In her artistic practice, she draws on Onkwehonwe epistemology to bring into focus ways of understanding and relating to the worlds around us. She is co-director of the Indigenous Futures Research Centre at Concordia University and co-founder of daphne, an Indigenous artist-run centre in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. 

 

Hannah Claus, teyoweratá:se, 2021, double-matte reprographic film, thread, acrylic, aluminum, 243 x 243 x 305 cm 

 

Frédéric Lavoie

Frédéric Lavoie holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a master’s degree in visual and media arts. Through a heterogeneous practice that draws on documentary and fictional elements as material, he produces narratives, group portraits, and thematic analyses. His research explores questions of listening and observation, nature/culture relationships, and the Anthropocene, approached from a critical and educational perspective. His work is rooted in a patient, sustained attention to local biodiversity and remains inseparable from fieldwork. 

Frédéric Lavoie,Les nyctales des dunes, 2025,video diptych, variable duration, looped

Frédéric Lavoie, La promesse de l’aube. Black-billed Cuckoo, 2025, Video 4k, 3 min 13 s, looped

 
 

Frédéric Lavoie, Les parulines du Cap-Tourmente, 2026, digital photographs, inkjet prints mounted on Dibond aluminum, 122 x 244 cm (each) 

 
 

Angela Marsh

Originally from Toronto and based in Quebec City since 2008, Angela E. Marsh is a visual artist, activist, and community project creator. Her practice delves into the dizzying complexities of nature, unsettling the culture-versus-nature divide. Her artistic, ecological, and relational projects are the result of an ongoing search for intimate reciprocity and learning from the living world. As a passionate art educator, she has published several of her writings. She is also an active member of the environmental groups Mères au Front and Québec Sans Pesticides. 

Angela Marsh, Beloveds, 2026, plants, ceramic, egg tempera paint with mineral pigments, variable dimensions

 
 

Angela Marsh, Beloveds, 2026, plants, ceramic, egg tempera paint with mineral pigments, variable dimensions

 
 

Kimberly Orjuela, Shared Presence, 2026, terracotta, gold luster, 19 x 25,5 x 50 cm

Kimberly Orjuela

Kimberly Orjuela is a visual artist born in Colombia and based in Montreal. Her sculptural practice is rooted in pre-Columbian Indigenous knowledge and explores the restoration of ancestral ties as a form of healing and resistance. By reinterpreting ancestral cosmologies, she examines the interweaving of memory, identity, and transformation, addressing contemporary issues such as mental health, colonial legacies, and the ecological crisis. Her terracotta sculptures, featuring animal and hybrid figures (two-headed snakes, birds, reptiles, jaguars), evoke resilience, regeneration, and the interdependence of living beings. 

 
 

Kimberly Orjuela, Elevated Consciousness Portal , 2025, terracotta, wire, gold luster, variable dimensions

 
 

Video — A World in Common

In this video, the co-curators of the group exhibition ''A World in Common'' share reflections and introduce the works featured in the first chapter of this project, co-presented by the Grantham Foundation and the Biosphère | Espace pour la vie.