Artist-in-Residence: Frédérique Laliberté
Frédérique Laliberté is an unknown stand-up comedian, an outdated geek and a future set designer. Immersing herself in adventures that are both material and narrative – taking the form of investigations, workshops, films, installations and performances – Frédérique tells stories in complicity with objects, materials at the end of their useful life and rubbish. She is currently continuing her shenanigans as a research-creation PhD candidate at Université du Québec à Montréal. A specialist of nothing (except, perhaps, papier-mâché), Frédérique Laliberté has shown her polymorphous projects internationally in white cubes, black boxes and basements, on the waters of a river, between piles of gravel in a suburban wasteland as well as in the Sahara Desert. She lives, works and sails along the so-called St. Lawrence River.
Un bateau pour faire semblant
Frédérique is undertaking a month-long research-creation residency at Ateliers Belleville, exploring ecological imaginaries and working with ships as partner-objects.
The residency will result in the construction of a vessel made from salvaged materials. This makeshift, ever-evolving architecture will host a series of participatory activities: family collage, underwater archaeology, a book club, cinema on the water, nighttime navigation, and other collective experiences.
Participants will be invited to listen, improvise, reflect, and care for the boat together. At once a material narrative, a narrative dwelling, and a space for collective imagination, this workshop series proposes a fictional and transformative voyage.
Residency Activities
Sinking Together
In this workshop, improbable collaboration and irreversible disaster are stuck together like glue. Through staged activities, material scenarios, and narrative games, the challenge will be to grasp the potential for survival and the potential for death within a dysfunctional team over which you have no authority. Listen to the tricksters. Let the salt take a bite out of you. Learn to symprax. Maybe make it through an ending.
October 7, 2026
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
No registration required. Meet at 545 Legendre West, Montréal!
At 545 Legendre West, Montréal.
Carnivalesque Dismantling
Welcome to families who appreciate a good party. The epilogue to the collaborative shipwreck of Sinking Together, this final activity is a kind of costume-party-residency-wrap-up-pre-dismantling-extravaganza open to all. Come dressed as a sea creature or aquatic object of your choice! Dance to the rhythm of the waves! Leave with a souvenir looted from the wreckage of A Boat for Pretending!
One rule only:
no costume... no looting.
October 8, 2026
8 p.m. until late
No registration required. Meet at 545 Legendre West, Montréal!
