First a mother, then a daughter and granddaughter, Mélanie O’Bomsawin is also a video editor and new media artist. Born to an Abenaki parent and a Québécois parent, she works with video in all its forms to explore her connections to those who came before her and those who will follow. Her practice engages with questions of identity, language, traditions, memory, and transmission. Stage and architectural projections, gallery installations, and cultural mediation are among the tools she uses to explore these themes. She creates for generations past and those yet to come. Mélanie is a member of the Abenaki community of Odanak and currently lives in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyaang / Montréal.
Residency Project
As part of her residency, Mélanie O’Bomsawin will explore how the widespread digitization of the natural environment transforms our relationship to the physical world and to memory.
Her research draws on photogrammetry based on video footage captured on the land, as well as 3D scans of people who are close to her. She also works with images from platforms such as Google Earth and Street View.
At the end of the residency, Mélanie hopes to create a short video prototype using these 3D scans, accompanied by audio recordings of conversations with her children, who are an integral part of her creative process.
End-of-residency
October 28th, 2026 - 6 PM
We are pleased to invite you to Mélanie O’Bomsawin’s residency presentation. The artist will share her research directions and the sources of inspiration that have informed her work throughout the residency.
What becomes of the sunsets, rainbows, sudden storms, and family meals that we capture and store on hard drives today? As our memories are increasingly externalized through archival technologies, Mélanie has been interested in how these new forms of digital memory transform our relationship to the land and to the people around us.
No registration required.
