Molior is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the international symposium "Rethinking our Futures: Art & Collaboration"

Montreal, February 9, 2021 - The year 2021 marks the twentieth anniversary of Molior's foundation. To celebrate two decades of showcasing the work of artists through over fifty collaborations with partners in Canada, Latin America, Asia and Europe, Molior is launching the symposium Rethinking our Futures: Art & Collaboration. The event takes the current challenges of curatorial practices in digital art as a point of departure. The full program will be posted online on February 11th.

This international gathering seeks to stimulate reflection on collaborative strategies, joint approaches and new technology's potential for the presentation of contemporary art works. It aims to situate today's challenges, particularly in the pandemic context, and to clear paths for a more empathetic, supportive and ethical future in the digital art field.

PRESENTATIONS
A series of four introductory talks will be made available on the event's website as of February 11th. The speakers will focus on issues such as the ecocide of digital systems, human/machine collaboration, online curation as well as the resistance to the heteronormativity of computational technologies.

CONVERSATIONS
This will be followed by three conversations between inspiring curators, authors and researchers from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. On February 23 at 10am (UTC-5), curators Kefiloe Siwisa and Carmen Salas will talk about empathy and solidarity for the times to come. The founder and creative director of African Digital Art, Jepchumba, and the co-president of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and director of the MacKenzie Art Gallery, John Hampton, will speak about digital decolonization through collective platforms on March 2 at 10am (UTC-5). Finally, the third discussion will welcome Nora N. Khan, as well as Iris Xinru Long, both of them acclaimed writers and curators. On March 4 at 6pm (UTC-5), they will talk about the potential of artificial intelligence and virtual reality to connect different fields of research, but also to help understand different social realities.

COHORT OF CURATORS
Afterwards, the event will bring together a group of international curators who take an interest in the notion of collaboration in digital arts. In complement to the presentations and thematic conversations, these curators will take part in a series of closed workshops in order to reflect on collaborative issues. In light of these exchanges, the event will be punctuated by a wrap-up discussion with the public, as well as by a publication which will be developed and inscribed on the event's website.
 

MOLIOR
Molior is an organization specialized in the production of exhibitions and artistic projects which make use of technologies as a creation, expression and action tool. Since its foundation in 2001, Molior has presented numerous innovative projects in Canada as well as on the international scene in collaboration with multiple dissemination partners.
 
This project received funding from Canada Council for the Arts, Gouvernement du Québec and Conseil des arts de Montréal.