Board of Directors and Committees

Éric Desmarais holds a master's degree in visual and media arts from UQAM. Since 2010, he has been the executive director and co-artistic director of Sporobole, an artist-run centre located in Sherbrooke, Quebec (Canada). Founded in 1973, the centre now specializes in technological creation and guides artists from various disciplines at all stages of their creative process through several research, production and dissemination residency programs. In 2014, in an effort to break down disciplines, Sporobole established the Interface: Art/Science program, which brings together artists and researchers in science and engineering for long-term research and co-creation residencies. As a result, the center has enabled collaborations between art and artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, biotechnology, astrophysics, and quantum physics. In 2018, Sporobole created the 0/1 division, a digital hub that offers digital coaching and development services for artists and cultural organizations across Canada. Éric Desmarais was president of the Conseil québécois des arts médiatiques (CQAM), where he served from 2010 to 2021, and is one of the main architects of the founding of REPAIRE, born from the merger with the RAIQ.

France Choinière has been the director of Dazibao for several years. She is interested in the evolution of image practices, the specificities of their spatialization and dissemination, and the historical and social issues that these practices raise. Her approach is characterized by the close ties she maintains with artists, from the genesis of a project to its dissemination. She has prepared a number of exhibitions and video programs for Dazibao, and has developed a significant publishing component, which now includes a digital section. Other important projects include the group exhibitions Out of space: la photographie et l'imaginaire sculptural; Point & Shoot, photographie et performance (with Michèle Thériault); Fonction/Fiction (with Vincent Bonin); Home Sweet Home: À propos de l'inquiétude (with Olivia Boudreau); Let's Be Open About... Conceptual Art (with Daniel Olson) and, more recently, Do You See What I Hear? Do You See What I Hear? She has also worked on solo exhibitions, either retrospective (Bas Jan Ader, Damir Očko, Reynold Reynolds, David Tomas, etc.) or particularly significant in an artist's career (Velibor Bozović, Steve Bates, Nelson Henricks, Myriam Jacob-Allard, Marion Lessard, Zinnia Naqvi, Isabelle Pauwels, etc). Although she no longer teaches, France Choinière regularly serves as an external specialist on university evaluation committees and master’s and doctoral juries. She has also been a specialist for the Integration of Arts in Architecture program for several years. She is a member of IKT, an international association of curators of contemporary art.

Alicia Turgeon is a multidisciplinary and neurodivergent artist based in Montreal, Quebec. Active in the field of media arts and three-dimensional practices, Turgeon is primarily interested in cultural ecology through the concepts of accessibility, intergenerational exchange, meshing, radical care and design for appropriation. She recognizes the essential role that alternative approaches play in shared production spaces and explores, through her own creative research, the notion of authorship through Open Design methodology and DIY practices. Alicia is currently a bachelor of fine arts candidate at Concordia University majoring in sculpture, where she recently received various honors including a Sustainability Research Award (2020) and an Experimental Learning Grant (2020-2021) for one of her research-creative projects. As of March 2021, Turgeon is the executive director and co-director of the Eastern Bloc artist-run center, where she worked for several years as artistic and programming coordinator. Turgeon is currently a board member of the Art Matters Festival and a research assistant for the Kinawìnd Public Art Lab under the direction of Nadia Myre (Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts Practice).

Manon Tourigny was born, lives, and works in Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Holding a master's degree in art studies from UQAM, she is a curator and author. Recently awarded a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and in addition to an exhibition at Écart art actuel (Rouyn-Noranda) in June 2022, she is working on a storytelling project that adopts an ecofeminist perspective and questions our way of occupying the territory. She is also interested in video, photography, performance, and artistic practices that engage with public space. Manon has written numerous articles for specialized journals such as Ciné bulles, CV photo, esse arts + opinions, Vies des arts, Espace, and Inter, in addition to writing booklets for various organizations.

For over 15 years, she has been involved in the visual arts community, notably at VIVA! art action, DARE-DARE, RCAAQ, and Centre CLARK, serving as co-general director and artistic director. She currently holds the position of general director at Artexte in Montreal.

Along with his associates, Gilles Arteau founded Obscure, a cooperative of multidisciplinary arts workers (1982-97) and Folie/Culture, an alliance of art and mental health. He contributed to the creation of the Regroupement des centers d'artistes autogérés du Québec (RCAAQ) and the Ateliers de la Mezzanine. For a time he directed CKRL-MF and has twice organized the Quinzaine internationale de la radiophonie. A sound poet and performer, he writes for Arbo Cyber, Théâtre (?) and Productions Recto-Verso, two research theater collectives. With BRUIT TTV he has created numerous sound works. With the support of the artistic and community organizations that make up this cooperative, he coordinated and supervised the creation of the cooperative of artistic, cultural and community producers and presenters Méduse in Quebec City (1993). From 2007 to 2014, he became the administrative director of the artist-run center Espace F in Matane. Today, he is president and curator of PHOS, a major event in the region dedicated to the use of the photographic object in the visual, digital/media and multi arts.

Mélanie Bédard is the general director and programmer for Recto-Verso – productions, residencies, venues and producer of the Mois Multi international festival of multidisciplinary and electronic arts. She holds a master's degree in visual arts from Laval University and a bachelor's degree from the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Marseille. A professional video installation artist, her work has been presented in several artist-run centers in Quebec – Regart, VU, L'Oeil de Poisson, L'Écart, Espace F, Caravansérail – as well as at various international events – International Performance Congress Paris/Berlin 7th and 8th edition, Espace Blanc II in Rimouski, Champ Libre 6th international video and electronic art event in Montreal and Image Contre Nature in Marseille. For more than 20 years, she has been creating, directing and coordinating exhibitions and events and has been involved in various artistic organizations in Quebec City, such as The Emergence sculpture symposium, Rouje arts and events, Klondike sound design for a skating rink, La Bande Vidéo and La coopérative Méduse.

Anne-Marie Lavigne holds a BA in Political Science from Laval University (international profile at the Université Libre de Bruxelles), DESS studies in Management of Cultural Organizations at HEC Montréal and an MA in Interactive Art from New York University (NYU). She has taught at the Visible Futures Lab and the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, and before moving on to the United States, she worked as a video creative trainer in Maputo (Mozambique) and Johannesburg (South Africa). Anne-Marie has also held several positions in various organizations in Montreal, including Alternatives, the National Film Board of Canada’s interactive studio, RIDM and Mutek. His work has been recognized by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. The Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn) awarded her the Ruth Schirson Levin Fellowship (2014) for her one-year residency program. She also completed creative residencies at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA), Guttenberg Arts (New Jersey) and the Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale). She has held the position of General and Artistic Director of Atelier Silex in Trois-Rivières since 2018.

Gabrielle HB is a sound artist working between the ancestral territories of Tiotià:ke and Nitaskinan. She uses voice, text, synthesizers and in situ recording as the main materials, oscillating between free improvisation and slow constructions. Through her projects, she seeks ways to access more slowness, presence and subtlety. She studied digital music at the Université de Montréal (2018) and holds a master’s degree in sound arts from the London College of Communications (2021). It is half of the Desert Mauve (Charline Dally), which produces soft audiovisual works, and the ensemble Jardin (Florence Garneau), a minimalist ambient music duo.

Sound artist Guillaume Côté explores, through a mixture of concrete, synthetic and vocal materials, the territorial, linguistic and social dynamics specific to Quebec.

Eclectic, his artistic research is based not only on the encounter of the Other through a musical discourse with narrative or informative aims, but also on the abstraction induced by modular systems.

Active on the digital art scene since 2015, and eager for collaborations, he is co-founder of the digital audio creation company Trames, the collective Falaises et Aubes, in addition to holding the position of technical-artistic manager at the Avatar center in Quebec City, Canada. Winner of numerous awards and scholarships, his works have been presented in a varied network of festivals and events, both nationally (Mutek, Elektra, RIDM) and internationally (LEV, Gnration, Scopitone, Wavelength).

Geneviève Antonius-Boileau is trained in acting, dance, and performance. After ten years of practice in collective creation and theatrical anthropology, she has developed expertise in on-site staging and cultural mediation. She occasionally teaches at the college and university levels while being actively involved in the cultural life of her neighborhood in East Montreal. A tireless traveler and seasoned advocate, she is also an entrepreneur and the mother of two young children.

Holder of a Master's degree in Visual Arts from UQÀM, Sébastien Pesot has been an artist since the turn of the millennium. His work has been exhibited in around twenty professional venues, spanning a variety of spaces such as private galleries, cultural centers, and artist-run centers. His experimental videos have been screened at over a hundred festivals worldwide. As a solo artist, he has exhibited in various artist-run centers and cultural houses, as well as at MACBSP, the Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts, and the Contemporary Art Museum of the Laurentians. On the international scale, he performed in Saint Petersburg in 2018, exhibited in Hong Kong and Brooklyn in 2016, as well as in Berlin in 2013 and 2010.

As an artist-curator, Sébastien Pesot sheds light on the significant influence of punk on contemporary art through exhibitions and publications such as "Spunkt Art Now" and "Post-Punk Art Now." Residing in Sherbrooke, he has been teaching visual arts at the University of Sherbrooke since 2003. His artistic commitment led him to co-found the Perte de Signal collective, which has since evolved into an artist-run center. He played a key role in transforming the Race artist-run center into Sporobole and has also served on the boards of directors of PRIM and CQAM.

Léa Boudreau (b. 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal who works with electronics, sounds and places. Her work questions interspecies relationships by considering nonhuman existences (nonhuman animal life, artificial life, the non-living, etc.) as ground for reflections on hierarchies dividing our world. She works following a DIY approach (do it yourself) favouring knowledge sharing and a critique of consumerism.

Among other places, her work has been presented in the Symposium International d'Art Contemporain of Baie St-Paul, FIMAV (Victoriaville), OTTOsonics Festival (Ottensheim, Austria), Akousma Festival (Montréal) and Sonorities Festival (Belfast). She holds a bachelor's degree in Digital music from Université de Montréal and a MFA (Studio Arts, Intermedia) from Concordia University. Over a six-month period, she will be artist-in-residence at the Insectarium of Montréal in 2025 for the creation of a new work inspired by the rich and surprising world of insects.

Photo: Dania Rioux

François-Xavier, who has accumulated experience in the fields of social work and culture, currently holds the role of Managing Director of SPIRA, dedicated to supporting the creation and distribution of independent cinema. He holds a master’s degree in social work from Université Laval and a DEC in cinema and hypermedia, he is pursuing a practice in social work and he also teaches social work at the Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR). Passionate about cinema, François-Xavier is committed to discovering new artistic perspectives while maintaining a strong interest in new technologies. His commitment to social issues is manifested through his interest in artistic research and experimentation, aligned with the objectives of REPAIRE to support independent creation and promote equity, socio-economic solidarity, and sustainable development in art.