A Place of Memory: Contexts of Existence

Publication date: May 10, 2024

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition A Place of Memory: Contexts of Existence, curated by Irene Campolmi, produced and circulated by the Musée d'art de Joliette. The exhibition was presented at the Musée d'art de Joliette from February 11 to May 14, 2023, at the Musée d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul from June 17 to November 5, 2023 and at Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art from May 10 to July 13, 2024.

About the authors —

Noa Bronstein

Noa Bronstein is a curator and writer. Based in Toronto, she has held positions as Executive Director, Senior Curator, and Project Manager. She is currently Deputy Director of the University of Toronto Art Museum. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Prefix Photo, Canadian Art, Border Crossings, Journal of Curatorial Studies, and C Magazine.

Xenia Brown Pallesen

A doctoral fellow in art history at the University of Copenhagen, Xenia Brown Pallesen is interested in making conversations about art accessible to diverse populations. She experiments with different modes of citizen participation to examine the applicability of performative empirical approaches in her field. She has worked with Kunstforeningen GL Strand and Art 2030, a non-profit organization whose mission is to connect art with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Monique Brunet-Weinmann

A graduate in literature and art history, Monique Brunet-Weinmann has taught at several universities, including McGill, UQAM and Saint-Paul in Ottawa. A collaborator since 1974 at Vie des Arts and Parcours, she received the Laurentides Culture Council Award in 1993. She has produced more than a dozen exhibitions, and in June 2023, she published the essay Riopelle en quête de son mythe in Montreal with Éditions Del Busso, then in 2024 Riopelle sur le vif in France with Éditions Balzac.

Irene Campolmi

Irene Campolmi is Senior Curator for International Projects at KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces. For the past 14 years, she has worked as a curator and researcher at numerous art institutions in Denmark and abroad. In 2021, she won the Bikuben Vision Award for the exhibition Yes, it Moves!, alongside Copenhagen Contemporary. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History and Museology from the University of Florence and has been a researcher in a research group at the Max Planck Institutes.

Adam HajYahia

Adam HajYahia is a researcher, author, lecturer, and independent curator. Originally from Palestine, he lives in New York. His work focuses on images and performativity in the revolutionary context of Palestine and its region, as well as on psychoanalysis, labor, and negative speculation in contemporary art. Studio Director and Assistant Curator at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College, he collaborates with numerous museums, universities, and cultural institutions.

Emmanuel Iduma

Emmanuel Iduma writes fiction, memoir, and critical essays. He is the author of two acclaimed nonfiction books, the travelogue A Stranger's Pose (2018) and the memoir I Am Still With You (2023). He has received several awards and his writing has appeared in Aperture, Art in America, Granta, Yale Review, n+1, and the New York Review of Books. He divides his time between Lagos, Nigeria, and Norwich, United Kingdom.

Maria Kjær Themsen

Maria Kjær Themsen is the arts editor at Dagbladet Information, as well as a freelance curator and writer. She has been interested in contemporary art for over twenty years. In 2021, she curated Soil.Sickness.Society, an award-winning exhibition on the imbalances between today’s ecological, economic and health systems. She teaches art theory and philosophy at the Royal Danish Art Academy.

Samara Sallam

A stateless Palestinian, born in Damascus in 1991, Samara Sallam is a visual artist, journalist and hypnotherapist. Her multidimensional narratives probe the intersections between the social, cultural and political with language, the body and the psyche. Holding a master’s degree from the Royal Danish Art Academy and a bachelor’s degree from the Funen Art Academy, she studied visual arts at the École Supérieure des Beaux-arts d’Alger and journalism at the University of Damascus.

This book is a publication of the Musée d'art de Joliette, co-published with the Musée d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art. It is produced as part of Riopelle's centennial celebrations thanks to the generous support of the Audain Foundation, in collaboration with the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation.

We also thank Mr. Dominique Joyal for his generous contribution to the creation of this catalog.

22 x 30 cm (8 ½ x 11 inches)

Soft cover

104 pages, color illustration

Texts in French and English

ISBN: 978-2-921801-88-1