The demi-mesure duo emerged in 2020 from correspondence between artists Clara Cousineau and Marion Paquette and would eventually develop into a residency at Espace Transmission—an old garage on the Plateau Mont-Royal then undergoing renovation.
The demi-mesure exhibition project is structured around a black-and-white video featuring an encounter between two subjects from different worlds. Operating at the intersection of function and fiction, devices designed to facilitate encounters give shape to a poetry of distance and lead to the development of a common language. Play-oriented actions are deployed in a search for equilibrium. A little at a time, the measures harmonize dynamically, alternating between opposition and complementarity. The materiality of the objects is enriched by the crossovers and reflected in the objects’ gradual transformation. As the encounter evolves, adversity is transformed into complicity, with colour appearing as a grey zone that functions as both an indicator of compromise and a tertiary space in which the respective discourses align.
Five years later, these sculpture-objects—manipulated, negotiated, performed—give rise to a new exhibition. Transformed one last time, they appear in the guise of a unified materiality. Forms and colours blend, sharing their respective features and bearing a common essence.
Biography of demi-mesure
demi-mesure brings together the respective practices of Clara Cousineau and Marion Paquette to form a collaborative body of work involving a multidisciplinary approach that combines sculpture, performance, video documentation and photography. The pair explores the potential of “intermediary states” in site-specific contexts using sculpture-objects susceptible to activation. Their works oscillate between opposition and complementarity, revealing effects generated by the meeting of distinct polarities. Since 2020, the artist’s practice has developed within the framework of various exhibitions in France (Fol Film Festival, Paris, 2021) and Canada (L’Écart, Rouyn-Noranda, 2022; Dazibao, Montréal, 2022; OFFTA, Montréal, 2021; La Bande Vidéo, city of Québec, 2020; Espace Transmission, Montréal, 2020).
Clara Cousineau : site web
Marion Paquette : site web
Launch of the artist’s book demi-mesure
This artist’s book was conceived alongside the exhibition demi-mesure, which shares its name with the duo formed by Clara Cousineau and Marion Paquette. The publication traces and highlights the artistic approach developed by the two artists since 2020. It brings together the voices of two Montréal-based writers: Joséphine Rivard, who contributes an essay accompanied by an English translation, and Mimi Haddam, who offers a poetic perspective on the project. The whole unfolds through a carefully orchestrated visual and textual dialogue, thanks to the graphic work of Etienne Murphy and Marion Paquette.
The artist’s book will be available for purchase exclusively at Plein sud and online through the Plein sud éditions bookstore.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the entire Plein sud team for their support in the realization of this exhibition and publication project. Special thanks to Étienne Murphy, Joséphine Rivard, and Mimi Haddam for their thoughtful insights and invaluable collaboration on the editorial project.
Many thanks to Julien Forest (camera), Steven Turcotte (color grading), Nicolas Dubé (sound), and Mariane Stratis (assistant) for their support in the making of the short film demi-mesure.
A heartfelt thank-you as well to Christian Lemelin, Yannick Cousineau, Michel Paquette, and Louis Brodeur for their technical assistance.
