MAKE PLACE FOR

MARTIN BUREAU

FEINDRE L’ÉDEN, POUR UN TEMPS LE CHAOS

FROM MAY 16, 2025 TO JANUARY 4, 2026
QUEBEC AIRE PUBLIQUE INDOOR EXHIBITION
THE EXPOSITION

FEINDRE L’ÉDEN, POUR UN TEMPS LE CHAOS

A large circular table in the centre of a room recalls board meetings or diplomatic summits. But the charred chairs around it bear the scars of a disaster. A screen on the facing wall shows a sequence shot of the same table, with eight people defiantly staring each other down with pinched smiles and impassive expressions. Little by little, tempers flare to the point of ignition. Outside, all is war and chaos. Yet everyone acts as if nothing has happened: no fire, no flame. The camera rises to reveal this highly usual location, a bunker of people in suits whose heads are literally on fire.

Sounds emitted from the table in the room match the video feed. Flags of fictitious nations are erected around the table and line the façade outside, transforming EXMURO’s Aire publique into a false embassy and imposing their dubious ideology under the guise of virtuous ceremony. Their compositions combine references to the mining and military industries, banking and religious institutions, and the geopolitical conflicts that define our current times.

INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST

Dates
From May 16, 2025 to January 4, 2026
Location
EXMURO’s Aire publique
ABOUT THE ARTIST

MARTIN BUREAU

A multidisciplinary artist, Martin Bureau uses painting, documentary film and video installation to explore geopolitical and environmental issues. Through his work, he stages the Anthropocene as a foretold catastrophe, translating our excesses into a poetics of disaster.

Photo credit: Guillaume D. Cyr

 

THEMATIC PROGRAMMING 2025

ART AT THE EDGES OF CHAOS

With its 2025 programming, EXMURO’s Aire Publique becomes a forum for bold artistic explorations of individuals and communities confronting powerful natural forces. The works of Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland), Isaac Cordal (Spain), and Martin Bureau (Québec) subvert norms and recast assumptions to confront the far-reaching forces of capitalism, patriarchy, and the climate crisis. What all three artists share are sharply critical worldviews that foster a collective awareness of the urgency to act, reminding us that in the ashes of every collapse lies a promise of renewal.

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Partners
EXMURO’s Aire Publique is supported by the Fonds de mise en valeur et d’animation de la Place Royale, administered by the Musée de la civilisation.