Art of Research is a publication and exhibition project bringing together the works of Stephanie Comilang, k.g. Guttman, Catherine Lescarbeau and Thérèse Mastroiacovo. The project originated with a desire to valorize those artistic practices based on research and experimentation, from the idea of resisting the reflex to cover up the reflexive portion, the artistic posture so essential to developing a creative project—an artwork. It is thus a question of bringing forth this muted behind-the-scenes, to cast light on those untilled moments, moments of sway, if not of tension, between the conceptualization of a project and its realization.

Art of Research is divided into three components: the present exhibition, the notebooks that testify to the research undertaken by each of the artists, and a publication documenting the works produced and including an introductory text as well as texts by Biba Bell, Mika Hannula, Laura Huertas Millán and Sarah Turcotte, that take a discursive look at the project as a whole. Examining the singularity of each practice as well as the field that research occupies as an object of knowledge and the role of art in the dissemination of knowledge, this fifth book joins the four research notebooks which, together, form a single object.

This digital publication documents Dazibao's 2021 Instagram Residency. From June 15 to August 15, artist Anna Hawkins took over our account to create a project that reflects on how language is used online, exploring the many possible associations around a given word.

A look back at Dina Kelberman’s residency on @dazibaomtl, with an interview with the artist.

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It is at the crossroads of personal history and collective memory that Myriam Jacob-Allard’s work lingers. These take form in the exhibition around two narratives: a popular song and a family story. The title of the exhibition, T’envoler, is borrowed from a country song, a musical genre with a particular resonance for the artist’s family. Country music, at times described as “white people’s blues”, has the same visceral quality, that impulse to be close, in simple terms, to everyday life and feelings. Moreover, the lovelorn refrain in one of the principal works of the exhibition is sung by Jacob-Allard, her mother and her sister. The artist places beside this song a story which, because of its persistance, is part of the family lore. This story, told countless times by her grandmother, is an implausible tale of the time a hurricane worthy of The Wizard of Oz, when she was a child, picked her up and sent her flying. Present in each of these stories, the idea of flying away – or of sending someone flying (t’envoler) – invests Jacob-Allard’s piece with a strange duality: at once murky and light-hearted, the sign of freedom and attachment, of belonging and flight, it is the duality of fear of the unknown and the reassuring familiar. Under the surface, a private story’s potential for universality can be seen taking shape, but also, as a sign of the times at this moment of great uniformity, the deep desire to reconnect with – or even to invent – a unique story all one’s own.

A look back at Karine Cossette's residency on @dazibaomtl, from June 21 to August 18, 2018, with an interview with the artist.

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